I really enjoyed this production. It was a story we've seen before about two broken souls flirting with the idea of becoming something bigger than themselves, and possibly helping one another heal deep wounds. The acting was brilliant and I really enjoyed myself.
Bought tickets based on this review, and our admiration of Audra Mcdonald.
We both slept on and off during the first act, and left at intermission.
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I love this review. It made me cry. I am a sucker for many of Jesse Green's reviews or maybe I am an easy touch. I read the negative comments here and wanted to say " Oh come on, have a heart". Will I go see it? Only if it goes on TDF and maybe not even then, because I have heard from someone who has played King Lear twice that the current Lear has come together at last and now works. So I guess I will have to disregard friends who saw it early on. Also got two great reviews of Beetlejuice from wonderful actors and one is a Tony voter and going to vote for it.
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@cheerful dramatist - I saw it on 6/4 through TDF. Plenty of seats - we were in the orchestra.
“Touching” is not the word I would use to describe Johnny’s role in this play. “Threatening” or “menacing” would be more accurate. He refuses to leave her apartment even when she repeatedly, and with increasing levels of panic, asks him to. He dismisses her threat to call the police to remove him, saying he’d climb up her fire escape. He gaslights her repeatedly over her own reactions to his outbursts. There’s nothing romantic about the situation. In fact, it’s a nightmare of a one-night stand. Me, and those sitting around me, wondered out loud at intermission if he wasn’t more likely to kill her than to leave her alone.
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@Madeleine I felt the same way. It has not aged well. I also had issues with the structure -- they just kept having the SAME discussion and arguments over and over... in both acts. The emotional resonance didn't build, nothing seemed to change. If anything, he just wore her down after six hours. I was desperate for her to get him out of her apartment. It was cringeworthy. If I wasn't with a friend, I would have left after the first act.
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I would watch Michael Shannon as Little Red Riding Hood or a lamp shade. He's amazing in everything.
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I saw this play on Saturday and really enjoyed it. Audra McDonald was fabulous as was Michael Shannon. Both actors made me feel their pain. I too thought the play had finished in the first act, but I was happy with the second. I recommend seeing this play. The naysayers above must have seen a different play.
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I’ve seen this play three times and I completely agree with you. Although the second act is bittersweet and completes the first, this play could easily work as a one-act.
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Audra McDonald masterfully and powerfully makes you see and feel her character's pain from her past and understand why she has constructed strict boundaries on her relationships with men. Her character remembers and cherishes the feeling of being protected and unconditionally loved by her grandmother which keeps her still hoping and searching for happiness with someone. Michael Shannon skillfully creates a quirky, utterly desperate man who never experienced safety or love in his childhood and feels he failed terribly in his one attempt at being a husband and father. He projects onto Audra McDonald's character his vision of an idealized, romantic love relationship and forcefully tries to persuade her into instantly joining him in his fantasy where the trials and tribulations of reality do not intrude. The play is well worth watching for these two fine performances.
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I like the writing of Green and Brantley, but they seem more and more predisposed to write favorably or negatively and less objectively about theatre. I really cannot trust their opinions any more to identify truly outstanding productions, direction or performances. I have not purchased tickets for this, but after reading this review I think I'll pass. That is no reflection of my admiration and love of the talents of these to great actors. I do not have the same luxury of time or money as Green and Brantley.
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Regarding "more predisposed to write favorably or negatively and less objectively about theatre." My mind flashes on a moment on a sitcom where a witness is cracking (hilariously) under cross-examination and turns to the judge on the bench and shouts, "Who are you to judge me?" :) But it's not the critics' faults that we can't afford to see everything we want to see, as I know I could do that before premium, and have spare money for DC and London. Look at what's going on at the Lunt Fontanne this summer, and can anyone say how it differs from a Las Vegas line-up plopped down in a Broadway theater that just happens to be open until the Tina Turner bio-musical comes in this fall. And I'll sheepishly admit I will see at least two of them, and as much as it irks me to see a tour booked for so long into non-profit City Center, I will see "Bat Out of Hell" - and it almost surely means I can't also afford to see "Frankie and Johnny" this time at these prices. (I've seen the play a lot and have to make financial choices of what to see I never had to make before premium. But I do feel premium has had terrific effects on investors' willingness to try new things, especially for the new American musical.)
@Steve C.
Your loss.
I saw the show yesterday, and felt that the review accurately described it. I appreciate the fact that critics don't give us simple star ratings, like the ones that we've come to count on for everything these days, but it's impossible for them to keep their reactions out of their reviews, and why should we want them to? I have often made my decisions about whether or not to attend a play based on things in a review other than the critics' negative or positive opinions. (I decided to see a show, and loved it after reading a generally negative but insightful review, and have chosen to pass on well-described shows that received raves but didn't look like they'd be for me.
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@Barton I agree about the review. I got my ticket (on a discount) when the play was first announced because of Audra McDonald and although today I can find flaws in the play ((never the acting), last night I floated out of the theater. The actors, the chemistry, and I'll admit to loving Terrence McNally's never-ceasing flow of language. Yes it's probably too long but see it anyway.
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I seem to have seen a different play than Mr. Green did. In "mine," McDonald was miscast and not always able to find or embody her character.
Generally, a loose, sometimes bumpy presentation made one doubt the director's hold on things--and emphasized the play's faults, its fundamental inability to fully grasp its themes. But, hey, that's what makes horse racing--or theater-going.
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@Arthur Boehm - The play had been a huge off Broadway success, but in London in 1989, it was at a Broadway-size play house starring Julie Walters and Brian Cox. One of the group asked “what short-order cook would say [quoted a line from the play]”. But the answer from someone who seemed so old and wise then (he was maybe 50!!) was: A million couples hook up for the first time every night. Two hours with a typical one of those couples would bore an audience to tears. The playwright chose to write a play about THIS atypical couple, and THIS atypical couple would say that. That’s part of why he chose to write about them. Whether people buy seats is a different question.
In London 1989, even with Julie Walters at the height of her drawing power, they didn’t buy enough seats. Meanwhile, we’d zoomed over with minutes to spare from seeing Peter O’Toole in “Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell,” which was about a famous British journalist that all the locals knew well. But we Americans were at the concierge's line chanting to ourselves “Must see Peter O’Toole! Must see Peter O’Toole! Could be our last chance. He could retire any year now.” To us, the play was about seeing Peter O-Toole live onstage. He was mesmerizing, still in my mind. It might as well have been in a foreign language otherwise.
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@Arthur Boehm I agree that Audra McDonald was miscast. There's no way she comes off as a high school drop out. She's just too refined. I also think the play is not great. At the end of Act 1, I thought the play was over. The 2nd Act was completed superfluous as far as I'm concerned.
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@brutallyfrank, regarding "There's no way she comes off as a high school drop out. She's just too refined."
Education leads to refinement? :) I got through college, grad school in economics, three years of law school and then a Masters in Law, and never was even offered any elective course in "Refinement." I took a "Refinancing" seminar once, though. (The closest thing I ever got to "refinement" in school was doing a Stritch spoof called "He Had Refreshments" in "Tea Grows in Brooklyn.")
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