Douglas Carter Beane is one of the more reputable playwrights working today. In plays like "The Little Dog Laughed" and "As Bees In Honey Drown" Mr. Beane has tapped into the problems of simple humans with humor and honesty.However MR. AND MRS. FITCH his latest work is not one of his better efforts.
This time he is writing about two married gossip columnists who are having trouble finding the juicy morsels for their columns so they start making them up.
Mr. Beane sometimes does get in some scathing barbs about truth and fiction in the gossip columns,but in trying to write in an early Neil Simon style he hurls his jokes and one liners at the audience rather recklessly.
Some of his jokes are quite funny, but they come at such a rapid pace that you miss some of them, and instead of leaving the theatre satisfied you leave mearly exhausted.
The cast of two are fun. John Lithgow and Jennifer Ehle aquit themselves well enough even if they don't seem entirely comfortable in their roles and director Scott Ellis does his best to field Mr. Beans' gag-attack on the senses.
MR. AND MRS. FITCH is not a bad way to spend an evening,but its'chronic case of the funnies wears out its' welcome long before it is over.
At THE SECOND STAGE THEATRE 305 WEST 43rd STREET N.Y.C.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
THE MIRACLE WORKER A REVUE
I am one of the few people that never thought that William Gibson's 1959 drama THE MIRACLE WORKER was a great play, but the flaws it had [mostly in play construction] were more or less covered over by a classic final scene, memorable performances by Anne Bancroft, young Patty Duke and an amazing cast,and stunning direction by Arthur Penn.
The relationship of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan [the teacher who taught Ms. Keller to communicate in the real world] is one of the worlds' most inspiring stories and does not need rehashing here, but this first Broadway revival is misconceived, underdirected, and somewhat blandly acted.
The big [and I think fatal] mistake was doing it in the round with the spectators surrounding the stage. This presented a huge and maybe unsolvable problem for a director. How do you engage an audience in something that requires constant eye contact with the actors? Director Kate Whoriskey [who did a superb job with the play "Ruined" last year] hasn't been able to solve that problem so the actors spend part of the evening with their back to the audience. At todays prices that is not a good deal.
To be honest, the final scene [where teacher finally breaks thru to student] still packs an emotional punch and the two leads, Allison Pill and young Abigail Breslin give good, and sometimes fine accounts of themselves and the rest of the cast is o-k if not great,but being good is not enough to hide the fact that 50 years later THE MIRACLE WORKER is a flawed and sometimes dull play.
At THE CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE THEATRE 1633 BROADWAY N.Y.C.
The relationship of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan [the teacher who taught Ms. Keller to communicate in the real world] is one of the worlds' most inspiring stories and does not need rehashing here, but this first Broadway revival is misconceived, underdirected, and somewhat blandly acted.
The big [and I think fatal] mistake was doing it in the round with the spectators surrounding the stage. This presented a huge and maybe unsolvable problem for a director. How do you engage an audience in something that requires constant eye contact with the actors? Director Kate Whoriskey [who did a superb job with the play "Ruined" last year] hasn't been able to solve that problem so the actors spend part of the evening with their back to the audience. At todays prices that is not a good deal.
To be honest, the final scene [where teacher finally breaks thru to student] still packs an emotional punch and the two leads, Allison Pill and young Abigail Breslin give good, and sometimes fine accounts of themselves and the rest of the cast is o-k if not great,but being good is not enough to hide the fact that 50 years later THE MIRACLE WORKER is a flawed and sometimes dull play.
At THE CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE THEATRE 1633 BROADWAY N.Y.C.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
HAMLET-------------THE OPERA-----------A THOUGHT
Shakespear's HAMLET is considered by many to be the greatest play ever written in the English language, so I was looking forward to seeing the opera the 19th century composer Ambroise Thomas made from it at the Met this afternoon. It was for the most part worth seeing except for one thing. It wasn't very good.
Composed in 1868, it was last seen at the Met in1897 and it's not hard to see why.The music sounds like Verdi or Puccini on an off day, and the transformation from play to opera is clumsy and unsatisfying. To make matters worse, the production[directed by two gentlemen from France ,Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser] is ill-conceived and poorly designed.
The opera is generally well sung and very well conducted byLouis Langree,but instead of being truly transformed, this greatest of all plays has been forced into a medium that is not a great fit for it.
In short HAMLET as an opera does not work.
Composed in 1868, it was last seen at the Met in1897 and it's not hard to see why.The music sounds like Verdi or Puccini on an off day, and the transformation from play to opera is clumsy and unsatisfying. To make matters worse, the production[directed by two gentlemen from France ,Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser] is ill-conceived and poorly designed.
The opera is generally well sung and very well conducted byLouis Langree,but instead of being truly transformed, this greatest of all plays has been forced into a medium that is not a great fit for it.
In short HAMLET as an opera does not work.
Friday, March 12, 2010
THE NOSE A THOUGHT
The Met continues it's successful policy of being new and different with the American premiere of Dmitri Shostakovich's opera THE NOSE.
Based on a story by Nikolai Gogol and composed in 1928,it deals with a man who wakes up one morning, finds his nose missing and his attempt to find it.
Working from Shostakovich's facinating, atonal , and well orchestrated score, director William Kentridge has devised a smashing production mixing live actors with stunning video effects and coming up with a concept so stunning that the audience I saw it with gave it an ovation at the end that seldom greets an unorthodox work like this.
To be sure, this will not be to everyone's taste, and is sure to have some people wondering what the Met is coming to, but to those willing to take a chance on a new, nontraditional work; THE NOSE provides a facinating and rewarding evening at the opera.
At THE METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE LINCOLN CENTER N.Y.C.
Based on a story by Nikolai Gogol and composed in 1928,it deals with a man who wakes up one morning, finds his nose missing and his attempt to find it.
Working from Shostakovich's facinating, atonal , and well orchestrated score, director William Kentridge has devised a smashing production mixing live actors with stunning video effects and coming up with a concept so stunning that the audience I saw it with gave it an ovation at the end that seldom greets an unorthodox work like this.
To be sure, this will not be to everyone's taste, and is sure to have some people wondering what the Met is coming to, but to those willing to take a chance on a new, nontraditional work; THE NOSE provides a facinating and rewarding evening at the opera.
At THE METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE LINCOLN CENTER N.Y.C.
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