What an impossibly arid, empty, benumbed exercise this play is. Even aleatory improv should have some through-line, some development. Were the cast actually directed to whisper its lines to the point of inaudibility?
I found the acting uniformly good and enjoyed the play. I thought the set was elaborate for a limited run at a non-profit.
Anne Kauffman under directed and diluted a mostly good cast. While Dr.Wally was allowed to be a cartoon - everyone else seemed encouraged to mute in the name of realism.
This direction not only left everyone in one note performances but made 20% of the dialogue inaudible!!
The theater was much too big for this play as well and the physical space as well as the pace left the production empty vs full.
This direction not only left everyone in one note performances but made 20% of the dialogue inaudible!!
The theater was much too big for this play as well and the physical space as well as the pace left the production empty vs full.
8
The production cannot be blamed on the text. It I]is the acting ensemble this time around. Unfortunately there is a dearth of plays about aids now. In some quarters the subject matter has been relegated to the disease of the month. Conscientious theater folks (not in Manhattan) have an agenda to generate dramatic statements via new plays about aids now - an epidemic which is far from solved. Recently there was a 3 day ACT UP retrospective in Wilton Manors, Florida, at the aids museum/educational center. Firebrand Larry Kramer was there as well as firebrand St John s University professor/dramatist Dr. Larry Myers. A premiere of Myers' play about long time aids survivors & hiv negative survivors guilt called "Cocktails With Mr. Potato Head" will star Epiphany Theater director/aids museum director, Ed Sparan. Myers' Playwrights Sanctuary (endorsed by late Edward Albee) is in San Francisco this summer mentoring works about tent city dwellers & homeless gay teens - many of whom have the Hiv virus
1
I remember really liking the movie. Keaton, Streep, DiCaprio, Deniro. Are you kidding me?
A wonderful review, yet I thoroughly enjoyed the play on 6/28, precisely because of the performances you mention. The actors didn't overplay the emotions, and it felt more real than any drama I have seen in a while. And Celia Weston was a delight.
2
We saw this in previews on June 16 and we were disappointed. Celia Westin and Jack DiFalco were decent, but the play was very flat, very dated. There was no chemistry between Lili Taylor and Janeane Garofalo and it felt recited, rather than acted. Might be that they worked some of that out in the last two weeks. I do not feel this play merited a Broadway run.
4
The original production was amazing, dark, funny. The movie was sentimental crap and its stars miscast. Haven't seen this revival, but I'd like to give it a chance, since this review is so clunky, overlong, and badly written. You also don't need to tell 3/4 of the plot, Mr. Green, since, by that time, it's pretty clear how the story will end.
3
This revival is a misfire on all levels. The casting of Jeanene Garofalo is totally unforgivable in any stage play. What a wonderful role it is for a true actress who can be funny & difficult & heartbreaking. The usually wonderful Celia Weston is oddly enervated and muted in another wonderful role that could be a tour de force. Sad that it makes the writing seem so plodding and lifeless when the exact opposite should be the case.
5
You got it DJ, every performance was so soporifically underplayed (with the exception of peripheral characters who were played as cartoons - the Doctor, the psychiatrist, the nursing home agent) that every bit of life was extracted from the play.
2
It is somewhat alarming that Jesse Green and many of his current colleagues need things to be violent and angry to have an impact. (I guess, given the latest news events, that is just how our society is these days--loud, brash, and violent.) The whole point of MARVIN'S ROOM, with or without the AIDS context, is that there is joy in being a giver--Bessie corrects Lee when she says she is lucky to have been able to give love, not receive it. There are still millions who tend to loved ones with Alzheimer's, cancer, and many other infirmities and do so with valor. They view it as the honor of their lives, much as the AIDS partners did in the 90s. McPherson's play quietly explores their heroics. Bessie works wonders with Lee's teenage son, Hank, teaching him that there are more important things than taking, and Lee finally comes to at least some degree of understanding (without unnecessary or unbelievable theatrics). I'm sorry Mr. Green needs it louder or more obvious, for it means that our theater-going public is learning to accept shortcuts for carefully drawn pictures of life that unfold--versus landing in one's lap like a dump truck.
15
Dear Mr Green, I am loving your reviews already. THANK YOU.
2
Somehow this production managed to be flat and annoying, if not offensive, at the same time. What might have been a moving moment when lee appears without her wig she is shown with very short hair, not hairless. After chemo when my hair got to be as plentiful as it appeared on lee I gave up my wig. And while making a joke out of a blood draw had some humor, a bone marrow biopsy is no laughing matter.
1
I never saw the original production but I found this revival of a show I had only heard about and never read incredibly moving. I have nursed dying family members and found that I have rarely seen that peculiar dynamic addressed so well and movingly in a play. The actors were superb. I saw nothing "flat" at all in this production and am mystified by all the mystification in these comments and this review. In a month where I saw several other highly touted shows both on and off broadway, this gem of a productions stood out.
6
This is spot on. Thank you.
1
I saw the original production. It had a flat out great opening scene--in the production I saw, the doctor that Mr. Green describes as "straight out of vaudeville" felt more post-modern-scary, and the early parts of the play very chillingly and effectively portrayed the experience of being at the mercy of an uncaring and bungling medical establishment, while dealing with the terrifying unknown. In contrast to what Frank Rich expressed, I felt the rest of the play lost connection with its absurdist, comedic tone and descended into kitchen sink sentimentality. The playwright, however, clearly had a distinct voice and it's a shame we never got to hear more of it.
3
A real critic has arrived. Welcome, Jesse Green. I saw it in previews and was mystified as to its flatness.
16
Jesse Green dislikes "The Great Comet". So he is dead to me.
1
Uh-oh...a critic who doesn't immediately worship every play that is produced! Golly, what will happen to all the high-profile duds with moonlighted A-list actors? Will they face honest reviews? Fiascos like Playwrights Horizons' "Rancho Viejo" might be in trouble.
2
I can't imagine what Green would have found to like about the frenetic action and pedestrian music of The Great Comet. Boring and terrible sound quality in the theatre. I'll join Green in being dead to you.
I understand Mr. Green's bafflement in comparing seeing this production to the review that Mr. Rich gave the play back in 1991. While I haven't seen this production, I saw the play back in 1991 and was just as baffled as Mr. Green is now. I found the play flat and tedious back then and had no idea what Mr Rich saw in this play. I'm sorry for Mr. McPherson's fate but I could see no reason for reviving this tiresome work. Obviously, there are others who see something in it but it did nothing for me.
9
Don't blame the dead playwright. I re-read this moving, hilarious play two months ago and was struck by how well the script held up. Alas, something is definitely missing in this revival, and McPherson is, sadly, not around to give his input.
6
I saw this play very early in previews and the actors did not have much chemistry together and their rejoinders were at times too long. I imagine this issue has been resolved since then. In addition, I found the always delightful Celia Weston's voice a bit too soft for me to hear clearly. The play is special in that it gives you permission to laugh in situations that are increasingly heartbreaking. That seems to me a very rare gift to receive. For that reason I recommend this play. You will leave the theater a little more aware of being alive and also shuddering at its terrible fragility.
9