John @ Signature Theatre Co. - Page 3

[haterobics]

Posted: 8/17/15 at 2:27pm

That is part of the extension, so not $25 anymore.

[Wee Thomas2]

Posted: 8/17/15 at 2:30pm

Right.  I think tix were $55 when we were looking at the site yesterday

[haterobics]

Posted: 8/17/15 at 2:42pm

Given the short extension, and how crazy the show has been sold out, I think $55 is your price.

[PJPan]

Posted: 8/17/15 at 3:17pm

"That is part of the extension, so not $25 anymore.

 

"

Ah, gotcha. My mistake - thanks for that!

[LightsOut90]

Posted: 8/17/15 at 3:20pm

i bought for August 30th for $25 because they are doing a BBQ after, for $25 at the least i get a free meal lol

[bandit964]

Posted: 8/22/15 at 11:00am

Saw this last night and think I will be haunted by it for a while.  All three in my party enjoyed the show thoroughly.  This was our first Annie Baker play and I warned them about what I read on this thread at dinner before the show.  We were all prepared, but none of us thought there was anything over the top about the "pauses."  And I loved the off-stage dialogue in the first act.  

Everyone has been saying how Georgia Engel stole the show, and while I was heartbroken by her sincerity, Lois Smith STOLE the show.  My friends and I will be throwing out the quote, "matter!" for a long time.  

The relationship study was beautiful.  I haven't read on here yet the theme of overcoming your insecurities.  All three women talked about moments where/when they stopped wondering others' thoughts about themselves.  

To the poster who brought up racial makeup in the audience, I hate to say that last night was not much different.  My boyfriend actually pointed it out to me last evening.  I was sad to look around and see it was true.  I wish more younger people were attending also.  It's twenty-five f**king dollars!!!  

[theatregoer3]

Posted: 8/22/15 at 11:56am

Thanks for your review, bandit964!

Your comment about insecurities just gave me a whole new area of the play to think about. Glad you all enjoyed it as much as we did.

[Play Esq.]

Posted: 8/22/15 at 4:52pm

I really wanted to like this, being a fan of The Flick and having met Annie and simply charmed by her. But by the end of act two I simply had enough.  I didn't care about anyone on stage and I found the idea of spending another hour with these people utterly tiresome. 

Specifically, I was annoyed to high hell of the noise occurring offstage during the first act. I thought it might be explained (and maybe it was in the last act) but I didn't care enough to stay. Also, whomever stated that Smith should not have had those glasses on (despite her blindness) was entirely correct. What a waste to squander her expressive physical talents. 

I expect that Baker will deliver great work for many years to come and hope this was nothing more than a misfire. 

[CurtainsUpat8]

Posted: 8/23/15 at 12:23am

Saw this tonight....If you are going to write a three hour + play, you better have something to say. This play did not. It was one of the most self indulgent, obnoxiously directed and written plays I have ever seen on the NY Stage. There is no pay off. Nothing adds up. This is a BIG SPOILER: We find out the last line of the play that "John" is an old boyfriend of one of the characters that keeps texting her. WOW! How compelling!!

There is no plot. There is nothing to hold this together but people staring at each other for three hours waiting for the next person to speak.

Georgia Engel is wonderful. Give her Glass Menagerie or Come Back Little Sheba or some damn play that makes sense.  Lois Smith is always wonderful and is wonderful in this play. Her curtain speech, or whatever it is, is another piece of nonsense.

I am actually angry that three and a half hours was stolen from my life by this pompous play. I doubt I will ever go see one of Ms Baker's plays again.

[After Eight]

Posted: 8/23/15 at 7:34am

"It was one of the most self indulgent, obnoxiously directed and written plays I have ever seen on the NY Stage."

 

It's interesting to note that several posters here expressed similar sentiments regarding this work, yet in the critical acclamation accorded this piece, such reactions are nowhere to be found. Indeed, the critics were  almost universal in their praise, and indeed, rapture, with respect to this bad joke of a play

 

I wonder why that is.

[theatregoer3]

Posted: 8/23/15 at 9:57am

Meh. Haters gonna hate.

[Cape Twirl of Doom]

Posted: 8/23/15 at 10:22am

Maybe, just maybe, it's because different people like different things. 

[CurtainsUpat8]

Posted: 8/23/15 at 10:33am

This is what I mean by "self indulgence"... They want you to sit through a three and a half hour play that has nothing to say. There are two intermissions. Now Mr Gold and Ms Baker want to insert a five minute monologue of TOTAL GIBBERISH into the INTERMISSION!! Let us have our intermission Mr. Gold. That's what I mean by self indulgent.. as if we can't get enough of the both of them.

[After Eight]

Posted: 8/23/15 at 11:41am

"This is what I mean by "self indulgence"... They want you to sit through a three and a half hour play that has nothing to say. There are two intermissions. Now Mr Gold and Ms Baker want to insert a five minute monologue of TOTAL GIBBERISH into the INTERMISSION!! Let us have our intermission Mr. Gold. That's what I mean by self indulgent.. as if we can't get enough of the both of them."

 

Yes, that was definitely the worst part of the whole thing. Self-indulgence? Absolutely. I would say effrontery, as well. (In fact, the whole evening is an affront.) It's bad enough to have this pretentious pap inflicted upon us while we're seated, but by the time the intermission gibberish began, half the audience was already standing or on the way out. So now we have listen to this utter drivel WHILE STANDING, when all we want to do is get the hell out of there. But, no, they're going to make sure there's absolutely no respite for the weary; in fact we're going to have suffer in even greater discomfort than before.

[EthelMae]

Posted: 8/23/15 at 11:58am

I'm seeing this this afternoon. Someone please tell me as I don't want to miss it or have my partner miss it- when is Miss Smith's monologue?- after Act I or after Act II? I read here it's given during an intermission or at the start of an intermission- but don't remember which one. Thx. I'm excited for this after so many different opinions!

[After Eight]

Posted: 8/23/15 at 12:06pm

^

 

Act II. You won't be given enough time to leave your seat to miss it.

Updated On: 8/23/15 at 12:06 PM

[EthelMae]

Posted: 8/23/15 at 12:55pm

Thx!

[Play Esq.]

Posted: 8/23/15 at 4:20pm

Though you'll wish you did

[haterobics]

Posted: 8/23/15 at 7:21pm

After Eight said: "Act II. You won't be given enough time to leave your sit to miss it."

 

Actually, I saw it this afternoon and the people who dashed out to the restroom when they thought Act II had ended DID miss it, since they were very confused when we were all just shuffling out when they made their return to the theater.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 8/23/15 at 11:27pm

Hm. I just wonder how much information the critics have about the piece before going into it? Maybe if I had had an explanation from the playwright, etc going into it, I'd have thought differently? But for me it was a total miss. 

[haterobics]

Posted: 8/24/15 at 12:24am

Saw it this afternoon, enjoyed it. Similar to The Flick, I sort of appreciated the fragility and randomness and the notion of people trying to find meaning in their lives. I don't think her shows benefit from dissection, though, since there is so much washing over you that isn't pursued or explained, to try and fixate on the bits that are the closest thing to a narrative leaves out more pieces than it gathers.

 

Completely random, but when I saw both this and The Flick, I sort of was reminded of seeing the documentary Rivers & Tides, which looked at the art of Andy Goldsworthy. He makes a lot of impermanent art out in nature, like building a sculpture out of driftwood and having to finish it before the tide comes in and lifts it up, carries it away, and it comes undone.

 

In the movie, there is a scene where we really see him working to take some sort of reeds or branches that he found on the ground, and how he keeps looking through all of these random pieces to find the one that will fit what he needs right now to continue. And he's twisted up, sweating from the intensity of trying to hurry and build this thing, knowing that one gust of wind and it's all over. And he gets pretty far and then the wind does come along and it all blows and way and deconstructs. So, he started with these branches all over the ground, intensely joined them to create something that had meaning and purpose, and as soon as you start to see what it is becoming, you're left with all the same pieces back where they started.

 

Equal cases can be made that what he did either had no point, or that taking time in his life to try and find beauty in something mundane was magical, even if it never finished or remained afterward. Depending on your perspective, you're probably right. But one side is never going to convince the other that they're wrong, I wouldn't imagine...

 

But that's about as literal as I want to get discussing John.

 

 

 

 

 

Updated On: 8/24/15 at 12:24 AM

[After Eight]

Posted: 8/24/15 at 7:06am

 

Among the many "shimmering," "haunting," and "enthralling"  moments that "fly by" in this magnum opus, one of my favorites is when the dull-as-dishwater owner of the bed and breakfast tells her duller-than-dishwater guest that she likes to memorize terms that denote groups of birds, such as an "exaltation" of larks. Anyone with half a brain would head for the hills then and there,  but, --- it goes without saying, doesn't it?  ---  this guest is absolutely  "enthralled." Perhaps if the character had offered just one of these gems for our delectation, then that could have been dismissed as just another bit of worthless drivel in an evening bursting at the seams with it. But, oh no, the author wasn't going to let the sitting duck audience so easily off the hook. She was going to subject us to a ludicrous recital of terms that would have set even John James Audubon's head spinning. The fact that the simple word "flock" makes all these words unnecessary is obviously of no relevance or importance to the playwright. We just had to be "enthralled" by this little discourse as it "flew by" with the speed of ---  a trail of snails.

Updated On: 8/26/15 at 07:06 AM

[bandit964]

Posted: 8/24/15 at 8:28am

It's interesting to note that, counting the number of posters who actually have seen the show so far, 7 have given it a positive review, and 8 have given it a negative one. Pretty mixed bag. Also interesting to note, the posters who have not enjoyed it have written far more posts than the ones who did enjoy it.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 8/24/15 at 9:19am

I saw the play over the weekend and was most impressed with it.  The three hours went by most agreeably, I never felt that my time was being wasted.  I can certainly see that the play won't be everybody's cup of tea, but it sure was mine.

 

I appreciated the restraint of the play, the mystery and obscurity, the noises and bumps and flickering lights.  The narrative, such as it is, raises some questions, and I enjoyed waiting to see which would get answered and which didn't.  Ms. Engel's final monologue was a piece of real enchantment, one of the loveliest things I've seen in the theater in a while.  There's a lot going on in this play, and it would take more than one viewing to get to the bottom of it, there are little connections going on there -- Jenny makes a little speech at one point that seems to be connected in some way to an extended reading that Kitty does later on.  This is not a play that spells everything out in no uncertain terms for your easy digestion and edification, BIG MESSAGES will not be dumped into your lap.  You have to sit there and watch and listen and think about what you're seeing and hearing, and if you've not got the patience for it, well, there's plenty of other fare out there only too happy to oblige with easy epiphanies and carefully articulated Big Points for you to go and be un-challenged by.

 

Part of the problem with talking about the play is not wanting to spoil it -- there are little things I'd love to discuss with others who've seen it.  That odd little scene of Kitty reading to Genevieve, for example: did anyone recognize what she was reading?  Did anyone find it interesting that Kitty knew that author's work?  Or not?  And what was she really writing in that notebook?  Did those words mean anything to anyone?  They sounded oddly familiar, somehow.

Updated On: 8/24/15 at 09:19 AM

[After Eight]

Posted: 8/24/15 at 9:34am

"You have to sit there and watch and listen and think about what you're seeing and hearing,"

 

That assumes that what you're watching, listening to, and seeing is actually worth watching, listening to, and seeing, and not just a lot of hooey.

 

Theatre as put-on: a new mutant genre.