Tom Ryan Thinks He's James Mason?

Thomas Jay Ryan and Christina Rouner perform the script from Nicolas Ray’s 1956 melodrama Bigger than Life—a Technicolor hysteric about a teacher driven mad by cortisone abuse—in director Daniel Fish strangely joyful, across-the-board excellent show. The film’s emotional volume is so extreme that even Fish’s strict stylization—Rouner and Ryan recite all the script’s lines, alternating characters just as two people do while reading a play aloud—does not bleach away its delicious purple.—Helen Shaw