DESPERATE WRITERS - any reviews? ?

[TimesSquareRegular]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 11:42am

Official opening was June 6, but the only review I've found so far is from TheaterMania:

Desperate Writers
Reviewed By: Chris Kompanek · Jun 7, 2011 · New York


Joshua Grenrock and Catherine Schreiber's desperately unfunny comedic fantasy, Desperate Writers, now at the Union Square Theatre, traps a talented cast in a thoroughly amateurish script that director Kay Cole is unable to steer in an intelligible direction.

http://www.theatermania.com/off-broadway/news/06-2011/desperate-writers_37851.html

That pretty much describes the show ...

Any other reviews yet?

[Patash]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 4:11pm

Not really reviews, but have you looked at the thread here titled "Desperate Writers"?

[TimesSquareRegular]

Posted: 6/8/11 at 7:15pm

from TIME OUT:

Most problems will go away if you throw money at them, but some particularly intractable ones only get worse. In the depressing case of Desperate Writers, Joshua Grenrock and Catherine Schreiber's queasy revenge comedy, the attempts at polish—actors with movie résumés, a big commercial venue—only highlight the awful, screeching dullness of the text.

Grenrock and Schreiber, screenwriters with many projects trapped in development (per their program bios), clearly find their own predicament utterly delicious. Hence, our heroes David (Jim Stanek) and Ashley (Maddie Corman) are screenwriters who haven't yet sold a project, and whose need to be heard has started to trump their good sense. After some direct-address exposition, David and Ashley suddenly turn screwball and kidnap a trio of movie execs, hold them at gunpoint and forcibly read them a script. To recap (as many, many characters do in this repetitive, sloppy play): We are trapped in a theater hearing one terrible script while onstage another group of people is being forced to listen to an even more excruciating one. Metatheater has never been so unrewarding.

....... At the end of the night, I was left wondering: What on earth is this production doing here? I understand if, driven nuts by their business, Grenrock and Schreiber have started to loathe their art form. But what do they have against theater?

[docchatter]

Posted: 6/9/11 at 2:32pm

i ignored the reviews and went. not sure why i did and wish i hadnt. a shotty piece of directing with substandard design elements and a script that is so unfunny it is embarrassing. i enjoyed the cast for working so hard with so little.