January in New York
Since Gili and Cornelius were kind enough to let us stay in their apartment, and since New York's weather was much warmer than usual, Doug and I took a quickly-planned theatre trip January 4-9. We saw the following shows:
The Vertical Hour written by David Hare and starring Julianne Moore and Bill Nighy. I liked this show better than Douglas did. I liked the language used and that Julianne had an idea about Iraq different from the usual position. I certainly liked it better than Stuff Happens, where I feel Hare spent his time preaching to an audience already in agreement with him. This play was by no means perfect, but the journey was quite interesting.
Spring Awakening was the biggest disappointment of this trip; the reviews have been amazing, but we both found the show boring. Douglas has read the original by Wedekind, and Sheik and Slater lightened the tone. The music was rock, but not appealing, and the words were quite mundane. This has been compared to Rent, but we both thought Rent was superior. This is supposed to appeal to an audience younger than we are, so possibly we missed something. Some of the tragedy was presented so casually that I actually was offended.
Toys in the Attic was also a disappointment for me, but Douglas liked it better than I did. Most of the reviews agree with him, but some say exactly what I felt. The basic story is quite interesting, and the acting was good, but I felt the play was too long with too many uninteresting asides. Douglas did not feel that, and was very interested in all of the characters. It is autobiographical, but it's the worst Lillian Hellman I've seen. On the other hand, I don't mind that we saw it because it presents another aspect of her life.
The Ionesco Plays included The Lesson and The Painting. The first was very interesting and funny because Doug and I were taking a class from a teacher very similar to the one in the play. It's worth seeing as an interesting portrayal of the lack of communication that is so common in life. The Painting was interesting, but we didn't understand it. We researched it, and it seems there isn't much meaning except the problems with beauty and capitalism, but I'm not sure how successful Ionesco was in that presentation.
I really enjoyed Translations by Brian Friel; it is about both the horrors of colonization, and the diffculties of communication in different languages. However, language represents much more, and I was very moved by it, and thought the writing and acting were superb. Douglas felt it was too one-note, but most of the reviews agree with me. I highly recommend this play.
The Merchant of Venice starring F Murray Abraham as Shylock was also an excellent production. This was the first time I was able to pay attention to the beauty of the language in this play, either because the actors spoke so well, because it was staged in the near-future, or because I've seen the play numerous times before. This is a very hard story to sit through because of the anti-semitism, but the beauty of Shakespeare's language softens it some. I ran into F Murray Abraham about 15 minutes after the show and told him how wonderful I thought he was. He was kind enough to thank me very much.
The Germans in Paris by Jonathan Leaf was ok, even though Terry Teachout, my favorite critic, liked it much more than we did. It was about Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx, and Richard Wagner. I liked learning about them, but we felt the playwright was trying much too hard to write clever dialogue. I actually was able to speak to Terry Teachout before the play, and I was pleased to tell him how important his reviews are to my choice of plays.
The Vertical Hour written by David Hare and starring Julianne Moore and Bill Nighy. I liked this show better than Douglas did. I liked the language used and that Julianne had an idea about Iraq different from the usual position. I certainly liked it better than Stuff Happens, where I feel Hare spent his time preaching to an audience already in agreement with him. This play was by no means perfect, but the journey was quite interesting.
Spring Awakening was the biggest disappointment of this trip; the reviews have been amazing, but we both found the show boring. Douglas has read the original by Wedekind, and Sheik and Slater lightened the tone. The music was rock, but not appealing, and the words were quite mundane. This has been compared to Rent, but we both thought Rent was superior. This is supposed to appeal to an audience younger than we are, so possibly we missed something. Some of the tragedy was presented so casually that I actually was offended.
Toys in the Attic was also a disappointment for me, but Douglas liked it better than I did. Most of the reviews agree with him, but some say exactly what I felt. The basic story is quite interesting, and the acting was good, but I felt the play was too long with too many uninteresting asides. Douglas did not feel that, and was very interested in all of the characters. It is autobiographical, but it's the worst Lillian Hellman I've seen. On the other hand, I don't mind that we saw it because it presents another aspect of her life.
The Ionesco Plays included The Lesson and The Painting. The first was very interesting and funny because Doug and I were taking a class from a teacher very similar to the one in the play. It's worth seeing as an interesting portrayal of the lack of communication that is so common in life. The Painting was interesting, but we didn't understand it. We researched it, and it seems there isn't much meaning except the problems with beauty and capitalism, but I'm not sure how successful Ionesco was in that presentation.
I really enjoyed Translations by Brian Friel; it is about both the horrors of colonization, and the diffculties of communication in different languages. However, language represents much more, and I was very moved by it, and thought the writing and acting were superb. Douglas felt it was too one-note, but most of the reviews agree with me. I highly recommend this play.
The Merchant of Venice starring F Murray Abraham as Shylock was also an excellent production. This was the first time I was able to pay attention to the beauty of the language in this play, either because the actors spoke so well, because it was staged in the near-future, or because I've seen the play numerous times before. This is a very hard story to sit through because of the anti-semitism, but the beauty of Shakespeare's language softens it some. I ran into F Murray Abraham about 15 minutes after the show and told him how wonderful I thought he was. He was kind enough to thank me very much.
The Germans in Paris by Jonathan Leaf was ok, even though Terry Teachout, my favorite critic, liked it much more than we did. It was about Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx, and Richard Wagner. I liked learning about them, but we felt the playwright was trying much too hard to write clever dialogue. I actually was able to speak to Terry Teachout before the play, and I was pleased to tell him how important his reviews are to my choice of plays.
posted by Between Shows @ 1:50 PM
