So What IS The Most Boring Play?- Page 2

[once a month]

Posted: 6/15/12 at 11:38am

The Leaf People

Breaking the Code

Anna in the Tropics

[Roscoe]

Posted: 6/15/12 at 11:40am

I'll agree with Stoppard's agonizing ROCK AND ROLL, which is one of the most agonizing three hours I've spent in a theater, but I think a lot of the blame for that horror has to go to Trevor Nunn's idiotic direction of the Broadway production. After every scene, a black curtain came down and loud music started playing, and we lucky audience members got to sit there and read the names of the band personnel of the badly amplified music we were listening to, all this to cover some really minimal scene changes. It just brought the play to a screeching halt every 15 or so minutes, no momentum was ever allowed to build up and it eventually just wound up completely alienating me from what was going on.

I suspect the play would have run about 90 minutes without all that foolishness.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 6/15/12 at 12:14pm

I have to agree about THE PHILANTHROPIST, although it might work better if the title role was played by a more compelling actor than Matthew Broderick.

However, the most boring play I've ever endured was the original production of VEIUX CARRE by Tennessee Williams. I actually dozed off during this one and when I awoke ten minutes later, the same babble was being discussed on stage.

Posted: 6/15/12 at 12:39pm

Copenhagen! ugh....

[JRybka]

Posted: 6/15/12 at 12:59pm

The most boring for me was Dancing at Lughnasa. Just a total snooze.

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 6/15/12 at 1:02pm

I saw the recent production of Richard III with Kevin Spacey in London and found it insufferably dull (and thought Spacey was awful).

I also found the first part of The Coast of Utopia incredibly boring...it was a beautiful production though.

[ajh]

Posted: 6/15/12 at 2:08pm

Waiting For Godot. I waited and I waited and I waited.......

[wexy]

Posted: 6/15/12 at 3:11pm

Wonderful Tennessee. A boring boring Friel play
Arcadia killed me.
The Philanthropist was just bad.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 6/15/12 at 3:29pm

Of all the plays I have seen one sticks out as both boring and over-hyped due to winning a Pulitzer Prize: THE YOUNG MAN FROM ATLANTA.

Despite good performances from Rip Torn and Shirley Knight, the play never caught fire and the supposed twist revelation in the final scene was anything but a surprise.

I have seen boring productions of really good plays (usually school and amateur groups who are at a loss to pull off a decent STREETCAR or OUR TOWN) but this was a rare case of what I considered a good production of a bad play. Maybe it would have helped if I had seen THE ORPHAN'S HOME cycle beforehand, but I rather doubt it.

[DEClarke]

Posted: 6/15/12 at 3:32pm

I would have to say BELOW THE BELT by Richard Dresser. Stage Repertory Theatre did it in 1998. It starred a then undiscovered Jim Parsons, and he wasn't enough to save it. I wonder if he even remembers that role. I hope I see him at the HARVEY stage door, so I can ask him.

[fashionguru_23]

Posted: 6/15/12 at 3:38pm

"Smash" by Jeffrey Hatcher. Based on George Bernard Shaw’s “An Unsocial Socialist”.

[ahhrealmonsters]

Posted: 6/15/12 at 3:42pm

The most recent one that comes to mind is "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore." Not one of TW's best.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/15/12 at 5:28pm

The Designated Mourner - The first production I ever saw at Steppenwolf and I was wondering if someone was pulling my leg. I'm not sure if anything would live up to the static blandness of that play and that production. If any of you saw actors that got to walk around or had costumes and anything resembling scenery, consider yourselves fortunate. And no, it wasn't a workshop.

Of all the plays I have seen one sticks out as both boring and over-hyped due to winning a Pulitzer Prize: THE YOUNG MAN FROM ATLANTA.

My second choice.

I loved the production of Rock and Roll at the Goodman in Chicago and was never bored for moment. Sounds like it must have been a much tighter production than Broadway.

I would have to say BELOW THE BELT by Richard Dresser. Stage Repertory Theatre did it in 1998. It starred a then undiscovered Jim Parsons, and he wasn't enough to save it.

I didn't see that one, but I did see Jim Parsons in The Pitchfork Disney the same year at Stages and he did save that rather bizarre little piece.

Updated On: 6/15/12 at 05:28 PM

[whatever2]

Posted: 6/15/12 at 5:32pm

I found LCT's A Free Man of Color horribly disorganized and silly, and therefore lost interest quickly ... making the ensuing 100 minutes near torture.

I agree this is a crazy-broad category, but if I limit my consideration to either the mainstream canon or works mounted by significant companies (yes, yes, i know -- relative terms, all), this work springs most immediately to mind.

[mikem]

Posted: 6/15/12 at 6:00pm

Tom Stoppard is a very gifted writer ("The Real Inspector Hound" is one of my all-time favorites), but sometimes I think he could really, really use an editor. His plays are often very idea-driven rather than character- or plot-driven, so they can easily become very static. Which is a problem when the play is around 3 hours long.

The Trevor Nunn version of Rock 'n' Roll was DEADLY.

I'll add another vote for Copenhagen. I saw the national tour at a very sparsely attended performance. My friend left at intermission. After a while, the people behind me just started having a social conversation. Usually, people talking during the show is a pet peeve, but I didn't hush them because what they were saying was more interesting than what they were saying on stage (although I did eventually move closer).

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 6/15/12 at 11:53pm

Seminar. Don't remember a single thing about it other than Alan Rickman saying, "Didn't get shot."

[JeanGudio]

Posted: 6/16/12 at 7:18am

rock n roll really with rufus really ?

[Will42]

Posted: 6/16/12 at 10:27am

Can't comment on the play, but the 1951 film version starring Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker and Lee Grant is great and highly entertaining.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 6/16/12 at 10:36am

I know I'm in the minority here, but JERUSALEM instantly springs to mind.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 6/16/12 at 10:48am

Yes Jean, really. They should take suspected terrorists to a production of it to make them talk.

[BwayBaby18]

Posted: 6/16/12 at 11:38am

the Kevin Spacey, A Moon for the Misbegotten was very very long and boring.

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 6/16/12 at 12:04pm

I know it was supposedly a comedy but "Noises Off" was amazingly boring.

[MusicAndPassion]

Posted: 6/16/12 at 9:16pm

I think Stoppard's plays are brilliant, but not designed for the typical theatre goer. I feel his plays are to be read/studied and translate better on the page rather than the stage.

I thought Seminar, by Theresa Rebeck, was a terrible bore. It was smart for 15 minutes, then did nothing for me after that. Solid performances for a poorly written play. She's just not a good writer.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 6/16/12 at 9:30pm

I've heard people say that about Stoppard before and it makes no sense to me. I don't think I'm a "typical theater goer" and I still hate them. I find them the very definition of pretentiousness and literary masturbation.

What's the point of having a play that doesn't work on the stage but only works if it's read or studied? Isn't that what books are for?

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 6/16/12 at 9:32pm

'Long Days Journey Into Night'

Uncut.

4 1/2 hours of your life you will never get back.