33 Variations

I loved the show too, but the difference between the two of us is that you're a shill and I'm not...

Maybe the biggest fan of Jane Fonda, the fitness guru?

Can't wait to see the show on Wednesday, though.

Loved the show, loved Jane, but she needs to learn to PROJECT her voice.

I've never cried shill on this board myself, but a dead giveaway is often the fact that the person hasn't EVER posted until they were compelled to praise a particular show and the way in which they pile on that praise! That said, I thought 33 Variations was good, not amazing, and seriously needs trimming. I walked away feeling like there was probably the makings of a wonderful play inside what I had seen Saturday night, but that it was too long and my theater companion commented that she felt at times like Fonda was lecturing her on classical music a bit too much. Good ideas and some lovely transcendent moments...and I thought Jane was just fine. Is every Broadway show now contractually obligated to use projections?? Three out of the last four productions I've seen are, now Variations, and I am so tired of this trend...and of the way it seriously limits viewing a show fully from so many seats in a theater!

Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood-Elsewhere.com reviews the show:

Jane Fonda must be feeling like $10 million bucks these days. Make it $100 million. 33 Variations, the Broadway play I saw her perform in this afternoon, is a bracingly well-written, inventively staged, and deeply moving piece about fighting the demons of finality while living to the fullest, and it's given Fonda's comeback effort (which began about five years ago, give or take) the lustre and respectability that Hollywood failed to provide with Monster-in-Law ('05) and Georgia Rules ('07).

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/02/off_the_ground.php

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Amen, Roscoe. It's thin gruel indeed, seemingly created with stencils traced from WIT, WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, WHOSE LIFE IS IT ANYWAY and AMEDEUS. A pity Jane Fonda couldn't return to Broadway in something more substantial than this checklist of clichés masquerading as a play.

She plays a terminally ill Beethoven scholar who has a burning urge to discover the reason for a long gap in the creation of the 33 Variations. Of course, being a bookish scholar, she’s a cold, distant mother and has a prickly relationship with her sullen, rudderless daughter. The scholar has a goofy male nurse who hooks up with the daughter sledgehammer cute, and have an even more heavy-handed Nora Ephron moment a few scenes later.
The archivist who assists the Beethoven scholar is a stern, humorless starchy bureaucrat (of course, she’s German!) who meets the scholar later in the most contrived circumstance. Of course, the archivist later warms to the scholar who is physically falling apart and hasn't got much time left!!!

Beethoven and his much harried assistant-servant pop in and out of the proceedings. You can tell Beethoven is a great composer as he shuffles around the stage doing the whole 'mad-irascible--passionate-bellowing-wild-eyed-genius’ shtick and of course he's obsessed and has to write more and more variations because he’s physically falling apart and hasn’t got much time left!

It's recycled pap for theater snobs.

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I saw this tonight and absolutely loved it. This is such a touching and completely original play. The way the two stories (three at some points) intertwine is just done so well. For me, some of the best moments were when they all (mother, daughter, legend) say/feel the same thing. Really enjoyed seeing Jane Fonda and Colin Hanks onstage, as I've liked them both for some time (the latter moreso if you will forgive my youth and slight obsession with Roswell). The real cherry on top for me, however, was having a man I respect and have studied for some time appear onstage at the beginning of the play.

Before anything started, Moisés Kaufman came to the stage and thanked us all for being there. He said that it is quite brave of us all to take a chance on a preview and that he appreciated it greatly. He made a point that the play we saw tonight would never be seen again, as it is still changing while in previews. What I loved (besides just getting to see this man) was that he went on to say that any and all things we liked about the play were to be entirely attributed to the wonderful cast. And the blame for anything that did not work, he said, should rest on his shoulders alone.

All in all a class act, and superb play, from Kaufman.

Saw the show last night, and it was great to see Moises before the show started. The play itself needs a lot of work. Whenever the actors spoke to the audience, they were compelling, but for some strange reason, whenever they spoke to each other the whole thing felt tentative. And I never felt any sort of connection between Jane and Samantha. Intentional? Maybe. But it needs to look like it's the direction and not the lack thereof. I will say it was a delight to see Colin Hanks onstage however - he easily felt the most comfortable and confident on the stage and the audience really loved him.

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What's the consensus with regard to 'Best Play' nomination and potential win for 33 VARIATIONS?

And no mics! I'm trying to recall if any of the straight plays I've seen recently did this - certainly "August" had mics. Which have not used them?

August has no mics. Unless for very specific technical reasons pretty much across the board don't use mics, it's unnecessary.

If there were mics used, they were not audible. I was in the mezz and all the sound came directly from the actors' mouths. At some points (few), it was hard to hear.

I'm an audio/video tech, and this was clearly different from August, during which the voices came from the loudspeakers. I'm trying to remember straight plays during which I didn't hear amplified sound, and I can't recall any. The sound I heard last night was not amplified.

Well, marknyc, I have a friend who's working on 33 Variations, and the last I heard from him, it was going to be amplified. This was before performances had started so perhaps they changed their mind, but I'd be surprised. It may be that they have a very good sound designer or that they decided to only slightly amplify the actors. I've seen a number of plays that I knew were amplified but that really sounded natural to my ears, though admittedly I'm not an audio/video techie. I haven't spoken to my friend recently as he's very busy with the show.

The last play on Broadway that I know was not amplified at all was Souvenir. That doesn't mean there haven't been others since, but that's the last one that I know wasn't.

On a related note, I was reading somewhere the other day (can't remember where) that one area in which Americans (and probably not just Americans) have gone backwards medically is hearing. For obvious reasons, more and more people are having hearing loss problems and at younger ages.