I am looking very forward to seeing this. I wasn't able to get tickets for it my last two visits so I was quite happy when in the same day, I found out that my January 19 performance of The Anarchist was cancelled and this show--originally scheduled to close January 13--was extending a week. Faced with an open slot, I snapped up front row seats for it and think I will have a much better (and longer) theatre experience. The world works in mysterious ways.
I saw this last night and have to echo the praise. I really, really loved it and thought it was an excellent departure for Durang. Sure, it still has Durang's trademark absurdity (the bits with Cassandra, the costume party). But I felt it was a lot more sincere and optimistic than most of his plays- less biting irony and wink-wink, nudge-nudge.
Kristine Nielsen basically stole the show for me. If this were a Broadway production, she'd be stiff competition for Best Supporting Actress. Her Maggie Smith impression is incredible and hilarious, while her Act Two telephone monologue is really something else- going from funny to heartbreaking.
jax, Where in the front row? In the center two sections, A is front row - and PRIME depending on the spot (ha!) - but B is front row in the other sections...
Nielsen really was striking.. hysterical at the top of the show and then her act two monologue which broke my heart - I was almost in tears.. (DHP's monologue is wonderful as well, and 100% spot on in performance and writing, but not heart wrenching..)
Billy Magnussen really stood out to me.. with the way his character is written and how he is used as eye candy (rightfully so), I think he could have come off as unlikable in the role or just plain bad, but I felt he walked a fine line very well. We were front row on the very side, so I was also able to see quite a bit when he had his back to the front and he was always just spot-on.
Worth seeing for the sheer pleasure of watching six wonderful performances--I didn't think there was a weak link anywhere in the cast.
I will second Kad's (and others') praise for Kristine Nielsen--she stole the show. Her Maggie Smith is really incredible, and I had tears in my eyes after her phone call.
I do feel compelled to say, however, that the play is perhaps the weak link in all this. Observing that the younger generation is sloppy about their grammar when they text, and all the grumpy observations that flow thence? Rather facile as social commentary.
There are larger themes exposed by the action of the show--middle-aged regrets over the paths not taken, the sacrifices we make for career or family, how fear begins to paralyze us as we age--that could have afforded powerful insights. Instead we get DHP flipping out over self-adhesive stamps, and Sigourney Weaver's character 'bravely' revealing that she--a middle-aged actress--is jealous of the ingenue. Durang went for the easy targets, in my opinion, and stopped there.
I don't know, I saw more depth than that. Maybe I'd like to think Durang wouldn't go for such low-hanging fruit, but I saw Vanya's rant as more as exposing that he justifies not living his life by embracing nostalgia and deliberately making himself an outsider.
I agree with Kad. I think it's easy to see those as low-hanging fruit, but they are things that point to much deeper goings-on. I think they are deceptive in that they can be taken as easy targets.. that is what I think allows the play to exist on a different plane for those familiar with Durang and those unfamiliar with Durang.
I would have to classify myself as "unfamiliar" with Durang, as my previous experience is limited to 'Sister Mary Ignatius' and 'Beyond Therapy'
I am interested to read the essays, although I'm inclined to feel that an author needs to be able to get the message into the text of the play--essays that describe the ideas that s/he wanted to explore don't really count.
And I will think about Kad's interpretation. I don't think I heard justification, except perhaps a kind of implied, retroactive rationale that the observer can use to explain Vanya's isolation.
We see that Vanya realizes that he has the ability to change his ways, symbolized by his decision to get a job--maybe--but the journey from A to B wasn't emotionally/psychologically 'real'--or legible--enough for me. I'm open to the possibility that I'm too literal.
Addison--you took David Hyde-Pierce's monologue at face value. There was an additional level you missed, in which Durang was, as Kad said, revealing that the people who rail against modernity spend so much energy railing against what is changing that they fail to live in the present.
What distinguishes Durang's writing--and it has never been better than in this play--is the level of artifice: the characters are experiencing traumatic emotion but expressing it, as best they can, in cliches and formalities that comment on those emotions comically. So there is a wink between audience and actor: "We both know I'm saying something silly now, but we agree not to forget that I'm really upset, okay?"
In the hands of bad actors (or actors unable to play off these multiple levels simultaneously), it seems stilted or artificial or unfunny.
But in the hands of a cast like this, it is theatrical magic. This play plumbs depths that most of his plays haven't, because Durang, now in his fifties, is dealing with aging, as is his longtime pal Sigourney Weaver, who has been appearing in his plays since her early twenties, and Kristine Nielsen and David Hyde-Pierce have also done his plays before. So they all share the same comic vision, and the same realization that our lives are the sum total of what we've done and haven't done with them. with little or no possibility left of great change.
That's why Kristine Nielsen's performance is so, so, SO good. For the first act, she is hysterically and self-indulgently stuck in her self-pity...and then that phone call...THAT PHONE CALL! It is among the best performances of a monologue or soliloquy I have ever seen in a lifetime of theatergoing.
I'm so glad I saw it. I really wish it was moving. I hope the next time it is performed, it is performed as well as this was.
I totally agree with you, PJ. I actually found myself touched by the play a lot more- a heck of a lot more- than I thought I would be. I expected to laugh and see great performances. But I didn't expect to be moved.
Really- that phone call is worth the price of admission.
Huh. I've got to say that this is what keeps me coming back to BWW--I really appreciate the insights and perspectives that challenge my conclusions and/or assumptions.
I'm reading the LCTR essays now and digesting a lot of food for thought.
Can it be that I missed something? Shocking, but possible.
More disturbing yet--is it possible that I was blind/deaf to the satire of Vanya's monologue because it is too perfect a mirror of my own perspective? Yikes...
I have to say, I love the LCTR and wish more theatres and productions would have something of that sort published. I know I'd gladly pay a few bucks for them.
I confess that the play's deeper meaning eluded me. But I still had a terrific time. The performances were wonderful, and the spoofing of Chekhov made for a fun romp.
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Posted: 12/20/12 at 04:06pm