I was there. I'm a big fan of Katie's and, well the entire cast actually and wanted to see it before it became impossible to get in. I was in the mezz which was about half full with only 3 of the "cheap" seats sold. Weird.
Anyways, the play itself it a lot better than I expected since I'm really not a fan of Rebeck's. It's not breaking any new ground and in a way seems written for the sole purpose to provide community theaters with a new family drama that can be done on the ridiculously cheap (the entire show takes place in a very large kitchen).
The actors are all great as well. Norbert is very Norbert and watching this you have to think it was written for him, otherwise he had a LOT to do with rewriting the character to fit his strengths. He along with Katie, who is fantastic and really a natural up on stage, are the two leads and are supported by a very underused Josh Hamilton, the veeeeery funny Judy Greer and (I hate to say it) the shows weakest character played by Jayne Houdyshell. It's not her fault, it's the way the Mother character is written, which as I said before, seems custom written for community theater actresses to be able to handle.
Out of all of Rebeck's plays I think this is one of the better ones. It not going to win any major awards and as she tends to do, at the end she tries to make it about more than it should be, but I'd say it's worth seeing.
I love Butz, but hate Rebeck. I've read a lot of her plays and see them, and I just hate her writing. It's so....uninteresting. I don't really get why she's always produced, except for like you said, that it's so cheap and uninteresting that you know no one will get offended by it.
I love Norbert but with Holmes and Rebeck, this play just has two strikes against it for me. I saw SEMINAR, and felt that it had no point and frankly little interest. Even Alan Rickman had to struggle to give it any life. And I saw Holmes in her last outing, and thought she confused projection with shouting, like some kind of badly trained high school drama geek. Think I'll give this a pass. Hot ticket? Seems unlikely.
Today was the best show ever. During Josh and Norbert's first scene, the chair Josh is sitting in is falling apart. The back support came off, Josh tries to put it back on, but it just won't cooperate. So, Norbert takes it and throws it out the back porch. So, just left with the seat for the rest of the Act.
All going well until the last scene in Act 1 and Norbert shifts on that chair and the seat splits in two - but Norbert is still able to sit in it VERY CAREFULLY! After a LONG pause they go on with the rest of the scene. Never breaking character. And you can see as the lights blackout that Katie just loses it. Live Theatre! Gotta love it!
During he first preview, Katie broke the phone during a fight with Greer and it was pretty hysterical. The way Katie handled it was so perfect that afterwards people were saying how they hope they keep it in the show. Gotta give "props" to Katie for that one!
I saw Dead Accounts tonight and didn't like it at all. I was just mystified by the play in general- why was it written and why was it produced?
Nothing happens for the entire first act until the last 45 seconds when they introduce the plot's main conflict and the topic of act two. There was absolutely no reason why this couldn't be a 90 minute intermissionless play. There is a lot of fat to trim.
The play goes to great lengths to differentiate between attitudes in the Midwest versus attitudes in New York. The thing is Norbert, Houdyshell and Holmes are acting much more like neurotic New Yorkers than Judy Greer, the born and raised Manhattanite.
I felt like Norbert was given some flint and some very soggy wood, and was then told to start a fire. Realizing the task was hopeless he decided to distract us from the fact that there was no fire, but no matter how feverishly he worked there was nothing doing.
I actually thought this was worse than Seminar and maybe worse than The Understudy (just because that was shorter). I definitely wasn't expecting Virginia Woolf, but as others have mentioned I thought I'd get some sitcom style laughs. It just wasn't funny though.
The best thing they can do is ditch the intermission and cut 20 minutes/tie up some loose ends.
spoilers********** Why didn't Norbert ever want to speak with his father? How did Judy Greer figure out he had stolen the money? I never bought into the whole money scheme, and I certainly didn't care what happened to the money.
I totally get everything you're saying. But as much as I DESPISED Seminar, I was prepared to hate this just a much and since I didn't, Im giving it some extra credit.
As for Judy knowing about the money, it's never said. But she does know an I guess that's all that matters. Same with the father - we just take it at face value he doesn't like his father. But this is Rebeck for you. Shes an awful playwright who sometimes gets lucky with some decent scenes and makes you forget for a couple minutes how bad the show you're watching is.
I definitely didn't think Seminar was a good play, but I found it harmless, and the characters were more realistically drawn than in Dead Accounts. No one, except for Josh Hamilton, resembled anyone from Ohio that I know, either on the page or in performance. The script kept telling us over and over how people from the Midwest are low-key, polite, well-behaved people, and these characters weren't so much.
I asked about Norbert's relationship with his father because I felt we were led to believe there was some secret in their past that caused a rift between them, but everything with the dad was a red herring. Why even have him alive? All this blather about the pills and the kidney stones- Just make Jayne the ill parent who refuses to take medication and rush her to the hospital to create a stressor for the family.
I agree with your last sentence JC, but I don't know if she got lucky at all with this one!
I just don't understand Rebeck. Was she ever good? Why is she famous? Since I've lived in NYC, everything I've seen that she's written has been awful. The book she wrote, is awful.
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Posted: 11/5/12 at 11:45pm