Category Archives: The Play’s the Thing

Cover your eyes! Oh, the humanity!

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I’m just a traditional guy with traditional tastes. I don’t mind a bit of experimentation now and then but when you do THIS to Shakespeare, I have to take exception. I saw the now mercifully closed Peter Sellers production of Othello with Philip Seymour Hoffman.

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In it:

  • The actors spoke Shakespearean dialog into cell phones. Sometimes, while standing right next to one another. You know how I feel about cell phones.
  • Iago wore street clothes. He had a green shirt because he was, you know, jealous.
  • It was FOUR HOURS LONG with only one :15 minute intermission, which is completely unnecessary for that play.
  • A lot of action took place on a bed made of TVs. And some folding chairs.

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  • Montano, a soldier of Cyprus, was played by a woman. In the barroom brawl scene, Othello’s Lieutenant, Cassio, doesn’t beat her up. That would be adhering to the original text. Instead, he graphically rapes Montano on the TV bed.
Philip Seymour Hoffman had a few scenes of utter brilliance but the rest of the cast was just burned out and didn’t connect with the characters at all. Maybe I’m just superficially swayed by celebrity. Probably.A friend described Othello as an oaf who allows himself to be easily fooled by a henchman. It’s his least favorite Shakespeare play. It’s a pretty accurate assessment so that kind of ruined it as well.I have tickets to see Jude Law in Hamlet. He’d better not fuck it up or I’m through with The Bard. I can’t take another evening like that. It’ll kill me.

Princess Leia and her drinking problem

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fisherI saw Carrie Fisher’s one-woman show, Wishful Drinking. Take a look at that poster. Isn’t that just too funny! Princess Leia passed out with a martini glass and a bunch of pills. Hilarious. Fisher spent many years being tabloid fodder and it’s nice to see her turn all that misfortune and addiction into an entertaining evening for the rest of us.

She starts the segment on her life during and after Star Wars with, “George Lucas ruined my life.” She says this while wearing a ridiculous Princess Leia cinnabon wig.

The best segment of the show is Hollywood Inbreeding 101. It’s a twisted look at her parents, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, and the multiple-marriage/multi-generational mess the two of them spawned. It would be funny if it weren’t true. That it is lends a touch of pathos to it and makes me glad I had an ordinary childhood.

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My two quibbles is that at 2:15 it could probably use an editor. And the venue, Studio 54, is TOO BIG for an intimate, one woman show. Other than that, it’s a winner.

After Sienna Miller

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julie1I saw the luscious (and, for bonus points, British) Sienna Miller in After Miss Julie—an adaptation of Strindburg’s Miss Julie. There were six of us and because it’s still in previews and hasn’t been reviewed yet, we were forced to form our own opinions. Usually, when a gaggle of New Yorkers get together to see a play, they like to do so after the reviews are already in so they know what to think beforehand. We are that shallow.

It was a split decision. Three of us liked it, and the other three didn’t necessarily dislike it, but they didn’t know what to make of it. Well, I thought it was fantastic and the fact that she slinked out in a form-fitting dress and played a wealthy, albeit troubled, seductress didn’t hurt the cause. Just look at that ad! That says it all. I was kind of hoping she would walk down off the stage, into the audience, sit in my lap and nuzzle my neck but, needless to say, sadly, that didn’t happen. It’s a three-hander and all three actors were suburb.

It doesn’t open until October 22nd. To my actor/lurkers: Can you imagine five weeks of previews!? It’s ridiculous.

[Special note to Nursemyra: I read your mention regarding Cate Blanchette in Tennessee’s Streetcar. That production is on its way here to New York (Brooklyn, actually) after Oz. Is it worth time and money? Also, you were right about the Robert Frank exhibit at the Met! It just opened! How is it you live on the other side of the planet, yet heard about this exhibit long before I did? I need to pay closer attention.]

Open season

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kyptileThe fall theater season got underway last week and the first sampling, from the almost always reliable David Mamet, left me a little cold. Two Unrelated Plays is about to open at the Atlantic Theater Company. It’ll be interesting to see what the professional critics have to say.The first play, School, was a brief :15 minute conversation between two teachers. It was a primer of Mamet syntax; half finished sentences, partial thoughts and colliding lines. You either love it or you hate it. When it works it’s magic. I saw Ron Silver and Joe Mantegna in Speed the Plow when it opened [mumble-mumble] years ago. They found a groove and watching them bat lines back and forth was like watching a really great tennis match. That sort of timing was missing from this first piece. And the subject matter seemed trite.

The second play, Keep Your Pantheon was an enjoyable farce but I don’t think it’s going to win him another Pulitzer, that’s for damn sure. It’s a comedy in the mistaken-identity-double-entendre-Borscht-Belt-humor vein and it was fun but the lead actor got on my nerves to the point of distraction. I think he was *suppose* to get on my nerves, but probably not to where it took me out of the story.

Okay. That’s a start. Next up: Carrie Fisher and Sienna Miller. Not together. Separately.

Meanwhile, in present day Cork…

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[Note to Cat: Feel free to bail out at any time.]

I don’t know what it is about Irish playwrights but they all seem to be touched (in the good way).

The reason I haven’t done a theater post in a while is because it’s summertime and there isn’t anything to see. During the summer, openings are few and far between. The theater community goes on automatic pilot and the season that ended in June plays itself out. The Fringe Festival is in full swing but it’s so overwhelming, and so much of it is crap, that I tend to (so sorry) not bother. The free, star-studded Shakespeare in the Park series is not worth the effort. Anne Hathaway was suppose to be amazing in Twelfth Night but I can’t be bothered to stand in line for 15+ hours just for a stupid play.

But this beauty (not part of the Fringe) was an unexpected delight. Two contemporary one-acts by Cork native Conal Creedon at the always reliable Irish Repertory, After Luke and When I was God. Fathers and sons, fathers and sons, fathers and sons. It never gets old and it will never exhaust itself. So good it’s been extended through September 27th. So worth your time and money (Jason).

I love one-acts for the same reason I love short story collections; if the material sucks, just hang in there and a brand new story is moments away. But there’s not a dead minute in either of these stories.

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* * *
In Neil Genzlinger’s review of Dance of the Seven Headed Mouse in the New York Times, he wrote that “…the play never really justifies its existence.”
Wow! That was kind of harsh! People don’t realize how much work and expense goes into mounting a show. Even a bad one.

I wonder what Mr. Genzlinger has done to justify his existence? Dipshit critics.