Whew! It took everything in me to not fall asleep during a performance of ‘Mrs. Murray’ this week. (The guy sitting across from me on the other side of the theater, slumped over, didn’t fare as well as me).
Lots of obvious incredible skill being put to use here that should be applauded. The costumes are great, the set was amazingly built, the actors deliver from their guts, and the songs from the TV show are so perfect. But my god, the actual content was so unbearable.
Maybe it’s just not for me, but if I wanted to watch pointless conversation, I would sit in Central Park or walk through Times Square, or maybe enroll in a college course — which I would actually (hopefully?) receive some type of knowledge in return.
I respect realism at this extreme level being attempted, but, personally, when I go to the theater I want to be moved in some way. A 90-minute focus group conversation ain’t cutting it.
@Liam - I might have been that guy ; ) wow ... also not for me... and scene.
Saw it Thursday night - absolutely brilliant...the character work is so deeply thought out...and the characters on the TV show...right off many of the PBS shows I grew up with.
My face hurt from laughing so hard!
@Barbara, that sounds wonderful - like it fits in with the article I just read in one iof the sections on Fosse/.Verdon's "Who's Got The Pain?" I've never had my face hurt from laughing so hard but maybe that'll happen. But I've had knee pain from jumping up too fast to join a mid-show standing ovation, and on a freezing winter day cracked skin from applauding too hard. And I heard I'm not the only one who's lost a contact lens from the shameless assaults on our tear ducts in the third act of the Dennehy-Redgrave "Long Day's Journey."
The reader must work hard to learn that the production is to be found at the Greenwich House Theater, 27 Barrow Street. Why not include that information with the other small-type info below the review?
I wish this were open for a longer period of time!
@Jim Q - I feel at a loss that I'll have to miss this - and too many critics picks! :). I've got time after April 15, but not enough money, when I add previews, and the things where the non-picks tell me I can't miss this!
But seriously, it's feeling like a great time in NY theater. Even with only 10 Broadway openings in the usually non-stop April this year, the era of adversity has brought so many artists needing to get work on its feet.
I mentioned but am still amazed, though I have no clue how reviews ever will turn out because I never do know and can only react emotionally to other artists' work and have stayed a David Yazbek fanboy since Dirty Rotten Scoundrels - that at "Tootsie" Saturday matinee, some fully staged bits that I see in last week's news had to have sprung from Thursday's Joe Biden matters. How did they do that? Did they all have to come in and block it Friday afternoon, planning to collapse from exhaustion on their Sunday off? I'm guessing that show will take place once frozen April 2019, like "Chorus Line" froze in 1975?
I just checked back to see if they extended and was somehow able to get in my original first choice date in the regular run.
A true pleasure to watch this ensemble work. Brilliant!
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