The review sounds like a large band-aid on an even larger cut.
Jesse Green' review of The True may not be the rave that those commenting may want but for me it is spot on. This IS a flawed
play from a critical point of view (where's the plot?) but as a
fast paced witty piece of theater it is certainly worthwhile. And then there's Edie Falco !!
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Love everything Michael McKean touches.
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Anything Jesse Green likes I can't stand so I'll make sure to see this play, as the readers of the NYT seem far more knowledgeable.
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Like Sufibean, I grew up in the Albany suburbs. The Dan O'Connell political machine was omni present and Erastus Corning II was The Mayor. I got out when I went to college and have stayed out. William Kennedy's novels returned me to the world in which my father (working class) had grown up. Then I read Senator Gillebrandt's memoir. I guess that everybody who leaves anyplace finds there was much more to the place than how it seemed back then. I hope this play comes to Dallas, where I live now, or I can get to New York while it's running. Given the chance of it or Hamilton I might even choose it.
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@Ed My connection with Albany and its machine goes back to the '50s. A close relative was one of the major cogs in that machine. So sorry I missed the play. Now my adult children want to know more about their relative's connection and are often in disbelief when they hear the stories----another time, another world.
Banner day when the Times added Jesse Green to its theater team. Writing that sizzles - even when the play involved (NOT THIS ONE) does not. (I, too, loved this play & the central performance.)
But this is about JG - ALL the right elements:
a) How did [the critic] REALLY feel?
b) Who among the readers might love it as much? Who might shrug or worse, given that tastes differ?
c) What did it FEEL like to spend 90-120 minutes with these people and that material?
Yes, this is him at the top of his game, but in cliche terms, a weak review (in terms of zing) is better than most critics' very best efforts!
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@edtownes, it's interesting about critic likes and dislikes. As I keep catching up on old Theater Talks, when Mr. Green once in a while does one of his brief runs of one-liners, it occurred to me that it's too bad that he really didn't like "Escape to Margaritaville" at all; a Times Talk with him and the authors of that book could be a blast, like an extended scene out of "Diner." I could hear him and Mike O'Malley bouncing off each other. Maybe when enough time passes?
I agree with Cathy from Brooklyn. Jesse Green's review makes me sad. Terribly sad. This is a solid, moving, smart, perceptive, and witty play acted with sharp grace and dynamic feeling. To all the folks who may not rush to see it because of Mr. Green's review, I urge you to get tkts. You won't be disappointed. My other take away from this play is that life is about process. Though the times and social norms may have constrained Polly Noonan from becoming mayor herself, it has all come to fruition with her granddaughter, Kirsten. It's a lovely thing to behold and understand. The work does pay off.
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Falco, Scolari, and McKean are brilliant in this terrific production.
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Kudos to the clever headline writer. Did anybody else besides me recognize the allusion to Tracy Kidder's Pulitzer-Prize-winning 1981 book "The Soul of a New Machine"?
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Miss seeing just good, solid, old-fashioned theater in NY, not yet another adaptation of a movie or musical but something that gets under your nails like this. Seeing Mamet's abysmal China Doll starring an absurd Al Pacino a couple years ago seriously shook my faith in the competence of Broadway productions, but The True seems worth a look.
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Scenic Design Derek McLane, Costume Design Clint Ramos, Lighting Design Jeff Croiter, Sound Design and Music Composition Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen
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What this review misses is how much the play is about patronage and loyalty in politics and in life. These virtues can seem quaint in our current world of egotism, disposable relationships and what-have-you-done-for-me-lately attitudes, but the play is using them to tell a political tale and also a tale of friendship and marriage. The play is a little too sentimental, which is both a moral virtue and a dramatic failing. I agree with the review that the playwright might have given himself more scope had he invented a story out of whole cloth rather than sticking to the facts, but the play turns out quite a bit better than you would think based on the review.
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@Jay Gayner what specifically do you think makes the play too sentimental? Seriously curious about this. Thanks.
@EBC I thought the underlying emotional tenor of the play was nostalgia for the days of machine politics and distress at the dilettante approach of the generation emerging in the 70's (my generation and, I assume, the playwright's as well). The playwright seemed wistful about the time when politicians knew their constituents better than their constituents knew them, and when people put personal loyalty above policy. This is sentimental in that it doesn't acknowledge the awful implications of this type of politics but focuses on the (undoubtable) merits of friends doing favors for friends. I assume that you didn't feel the same?
Edie Falco is one of this generation's most compelling actors. I'd see anything she's in.
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@Famdoc To use an old cliché, Edie Falco is SO good that it's worth paying admission to hear her read the telephone directory.
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@Carl Ian Schwartz, before she does the phone directory, which I agree has so many varied characters:
Ms. Falco seems like the perfect star to finally revisit Sada Thompson's Tony-winning 4 roles in George Furth's "Twigs" - which back then was directed by Michael Bennett and had incidental music by Stephen Sondheim. Or maybe just a benefit reading for her to try it out?
(Carol Burnett did it on TV, where going from character to character didn't feel like a real accomplishment, and it felt shortened too much. I feel sure of this because I was such a good judge of such stuff at 14, after having seen the play onstage at 11!)
@Carl, no idea if you'll check back, but I dug this out from way back, even way before the net; a critic reviewing a great star reading the phone book (I'd also put it in comments under New York Today).
“All alone onstage, Ms. Twelvetrees vividly conjures up an intriguing array of characters, but the writing fails her. It feels as if just as we are captivated by the esteemed actress’ depiction of, for example, Aaron and Anna Aardvark at One First Avenue, the playwright moves on to others, and never goes back to Aaron and Anna. It is leaving them wanting more run amok, gone terribly wrong. Yet at its center, Ms. Twelvetrees is a wonder, and props to the prop designer. And one can’t help think that a movie version where we actually see the characters might show this writer’s work better.”
I could not agree less with this review. I thought The True was quite possibly one of the very best plays I have ever seen. Jesse Green thinks drama was missing and I don't know what he is talking about. The True is about a three way love affair. It's a story of marriage, the ways we can and cannot hold onto our idealism and a meditation on change and aging. I am not sure what could possibly be more dramatic. A subplot? That would have made the evening so disingenuous. Edie Falco gives an incredible performance, the reviewer and I agree on that. But he seems to think that the only reason she was able to do that is because she is talented. She is. Hands down. She is fantastic. Also the playwrite wrote a near perfect play that held her and let her fly. I'm so glad I saw this production and this review makes me so sad.
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I grew up in Albany. My parents were Republicans and disdained the machine politics of O'Connell, Noonan and Corning. It was a small town in a lot of ways: my dad went to school with Corning and I went to school with his daughter. My parents moved away for a better life for their children. A whole different drama there.
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