I'll be there tonight. The main draw for me is seeing if Michael Shannon is as brilliant on stage as he can be on screen. Of course that's assuming the play/his role is any good.
Having seen him in BLACKBIRD, OUR TOWN, BUG, and UNCLE VANYA, I can assure you that he is. He's the only actor that I actively follow. I'll literally see anything he does just because it's him.
Also, I won't be putting much stock in your review, Whizzer. No Offense. I'll have to wait for After Eight on this one.
HA! Well I will defer making any comments until After Eight weighs in then. :)
I wish Shannon and Chastain were bringing "Take Shelter" to the stage instead of their two plays, but I'll happily cheer them on in their own endeavors anyway.
Oh, man, after her movie hat trick last year (I'm pretty sure I fell in love with her over and over each time I re-watched "Tree of Life") she's another one I'll see just to see. Somebody please write a play for the two of them. And write a part in it for JGL while you're at it. Then at last I'll have a reason to be like those people who've seen WICKED 97 times.
I fell madly in love with Chastain last year too. I would love to see her make a Woody Allen film. Can't you see her as a Mia Farrow type in "The Purple Rose of Cairo?"
I think Andrew Dice Clay is the most worrisome part of this list...I dunno, Branagh wasn't great in CELEBRITY, but it was kind of interesting to see him play Woody.
I wish I could say it was good. I really do. However, I think this will go down as one of the worst plays of the season. For a play that wants to pose big questions about existence and faith, it says very little of either.
First the good. Michael Shannon. He is always excellent, and even though he doesn't have the best part he really shines. He brought the only moment of humor tonight with his scene calling tech support and fighting with Kate Arrington.
Paul Rudd is fantastic casting. Totally believable as a Christian Believer who wants to open Gospel Hotels.
Besides that there isn't much else I can say.
The play is advertised as 90 minutes with no intermission, but ran for two hours. (It likely started around 8:10pm and ended at 10:00pm). It felt like an eternity. I saw many walk outs and could feel that everyone was as bored as I was.
The whole play is done as a flashback, as we see the final scene and work backwords. This removes any suspense there might be and by the end you are just waiting for the final scene to play out.
Honestly the highlight of the night was getting Michael Shannon to sign Take Shelter. Otherwise, I cannot recommend this play in any way.
Ugh, this was a rough one. What are actors supposed to do when they're given scripts like this to work with?
This is a slight spoiler, so skip the next paragraph if you want, but it is the opening scene so it really isn't spoiling anything.
The show starts with Rudd, Shannon and Arrington shot dead on the stage. They then reenact the scene backwards- Rudd commits suicide, then Arrington "comes back to life" after Rudd shoots her, and finally Rudd shoots Shannon before he screams, "No!!" Then we get a blackout and in true CSI fashion it becomes "2(?) weeks earlier..." and we see how they came to this.
After the explosive start the next 90 minutes are a complete slog. Long, meandering monologues and plot that doesn't build to any climax. There's all this chat about Rudd investing in a series of gospel themed motels, but it's not interesting and doesn't really go anywhere. There's no payoff for listening to them blather on about.
There is a directorial device that was confusing at first, and then I just couldn't figure out what the point of it was. Rudd and Arrington are married and live next to Shannon, who has an identical apartment. Therefore the set is just one apartment and all three of them are always in the room whether they are in the same apartment or not. If for example Rudd and Arrington are having a conversation and Shannon is on the computer right next them and he wants to visit the couple he simple walks out the door, and then turns around and knocks on the same door again. The only reason I can think of that they did this was to save money by only having one set.
Rudd is well cast in that he is very believable as his character. I totally bought that he would get caught up in this real estate venture and he was good with the "Jesus freak" stuff. His character is very unlikable though. It's hard to feel any sympathy for him.
Shannon probably fairs the best. His character is more likable than the others and has more meat to his backstory to work with. Of course it's hard to really care too much about any of them because you know they're all (slight spoiler again)
going to die at the end.
Asner has a small role, and his storyline is super cliched.
What I expected was that by the time we reached the final scene again, there would be some revelations that would add a depth to what we saw in the beginning. That was not the case. If anything I took away from this play that life was meaningless but coincidental and that you probably shouldn't look to Swiss investors to fund Gospel Hotels.
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joined:7/10/09
Posted: 9/13/12 at 10:33am