A TIME TO KILL previews

Tomorrow night. I'll be there. Report to follow.
I think John Grisham will be there. He's been spotted in the Broadway area very recently.

I am going Monday night. I am kinda excited.

I found out before the show that the performance would be the first time they ran the show without stopping. So it was a little rough and a little long, but good overall. A few trims and a little bit more time to practice the set changes on the revolve and it should be really good.

I do want to see it again toward the end of previews or after it opens to see what changes get made.

I could say more but it would only be nit picks and guesses as to changes that have been made or may need to be made before opening.

I loved it and everything about it. The set was wonderful. The acting terrific. It needs very little trim with it running 2:45.

Very compelling. This is theater the way it should be.

Of course they have to cut scenes from the book. Points were made without the entire scene being played out.

One criticism I have is about some of the projections used in between scenes and what their intention was. Most were obvious. Also the set is very distracting during scene changes but I doubt they can fix this. Set design must have cost major $$$. You'll see why.

What's the rush policy for this production?

Does anyone else $37 for a student rush sorta high? I mean at least for a play with no major stars that's in previews?

Yes Whizzer! I think TDF, Student Rush, and even regular "discounts", have all gotten to high.

I mean whatever works I guess, but personally, I find it frustrating & bad for the long term that tickets have been priced to discount.

A hit can charge whatever it likes. I believe in supply and demand. If a show is in demand charge as much and as high as you like. But I find it ridiculous that new shows or struggling shows have the same top ticket price as a hit so they can peddle "discounts" of 39% off. I think it would be better to just have a regular lower price until your demand merits raising them. It would help the theatre seem more attainable. Most people don't care enough about seeing theatre to troll for a discount code.

Anyway just a rant and nothing to do with A TIME TO KILL. This isn't something they started and I've high jacked their thread. Sorry.

I was at the second preview tonight and I have to say that I thought the whole thing was pretty awful. It's hard to believe that the man who wrote Drood also penned such a mediocrity as this. There is absolutely zero tension and suspense, which makes for a dire night with a court case. Sometimes really fine performances can make up for material like this, but most of the actors (save Patrick Page and Tonya Pinkins) gave uneven to uninspired performances.

It has been a long while since I read the novel or watched the movie, but even if you are completely unfamiliar with the source material it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out how things are going to pan out.

The play begins with two white men are accused (and confess) to brutally raping a 10 year old black girl. Before the men are able to stand trial the black father of the girl kills them on the steps of the courthouse and turns himself in. A young, white lawyer makes it his crusade to defend the father and get him acquitted.

The script is incredibly heavy-handed, almost to the point of being insulting. I also think the Klan was more menacing in Scandalous than they are here; a scene where a man brings a bomb to Sebastian Arcelus' house (the young lawyer) should be cut immediately.

The structure of act one is problematic. I'm grateful that we don't have to witness the rape on stage, but on the other hand it isn't very dramatic listening to people in court talk about things that happened elsewhere. After Arcelus takes the case the rest of the act hinges on a faux problem where unseen NAACP leaders have raised enough money to hire a fancy defense team. The NAACP will only put the team in place if the father fires Arcelus. Who ever will he choose? The character we have spent the entire play with, or the off-stage mystery men?

Act two is the trial, and a friendly L&O marathon on TNT before the show would make plain the blueprint for how it will proceed. Surprises on cross-examinations and impassioned closing arguments are bound to be in store.

Arcelus, whom I have enjoyed in Elf and other shows, seems a little lost here. He doesn't imbue the necessary ambition and spunk that this lawyer needs. I believe he was with this production when it tried out in DC, so I was surprised to find him giving a rather flat and bland performance.

I was excited to see Tom Skerritt on stage, but his performance in act one was almost unintelligible. Granted he plays a sloppy drunk, but I could barely make out a word he said as he stumbled, bumbled, fumbled and plumbled along. When the character sobered up in act two he was better, but the character always felt out of place.

Patrick Page really was the bright spot in the cast. He was perfect as the suave prosecutor. Pinkins has a small role, but she plays it nicely.

I LOVE John Douglas Thompson and have seen him give some of the best performances in New York over the past five years. He's fine here, but his character is annoyingly stupid. Arcelus will tell him, "Now whatever you do, sit still and don't say anything." I sure hope that pesky prosecutor doesn't try to say anything provocative now!

SLIGHT SPOILER**********

Ashley Williams plays Arcelus' assistant, and they simply don't have any romantic chemistry together. When it becomes painfully clear that a kiss is inevitable, I just kept hoping the moment would pass quickly.

END SLIGHT SPOILER*******************

Perhaps the worst offense is that the play takes itself so seriously and really thinks it's saying something important and new about justice and race in America. Unfortunately it's just a shallow retread of many better works that have come before it.

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Just got back from tonight's show (third preview). Apologies if it's a bit long-winded, but here's my review:

THE GOOD:

-The audience-jury device: really effective staging, and allows the performers to connect with the audience on a whole different level. The attorneys stand at the foot of the stage and address the audience as if they were the actual jury. Gives you the feeling that you're an arbiter of justice.

-Patrick Page: absolutely outstanding performance. Brimming with charisma and power, and really embodies the character. He plays the slick, carreer-driven, political opportunist Buckley to perfection. He's giving a dynamic performance, and often seems like he's blasting Sebastian Arcelus into oblivion.

-Tonya Pinkins: only in about 3 scenes, but gives a stellar performance in the short time she is on stage. Plays her character with a tremendous amount of heart.

-The house burning scene: one of those moments in the theater where the juxtaposition of a special effect, lighting, and sound works perfectly. Gave me chills as I watched Sebastian Arcelus stand on the rotating deck, staring at the burning cross. (Side note: there are two burning crosses in the show. The first is a projection, and relatively boring. The second, which is used in the house burning scene, is an actual flaming cross, and it's an absolutely thrilling effect. You could feel the heat from the flames in the audience.)

THE BAD:

-Ashley Williams: It pains me to say this (especially since she seems like a really nice gal in real life) but her performance tonight fell completely flat. She needs to refine/naturalize her performance big time. There are a number of lines that were clearly written to be funny (ex - when she holds up the remaining beers and says "just doubled my salary") where her timing and execution are way off, and elicited zero response from the audience. Didn't really have chemistry with Arcelus. I love her TV work (especially How I Met your Mother) and know she has the ability to give a fantastic performance - she's just got to buckle down and do a bit of work on her character!

-Sebastian Arcelus: bland. When the cast was doing the press/interview junket a few weeks back, he talked about how excited he was to play a character that wasn't just an altruistic crusader doing the right thing. Jake is supposed to be a complicated character. A conservative attorney who isn't necessarily your white knight good-guy, and conflicted about taking the case in the first place. Well, Arcelus played the character with none of the heft and depth to translate that to the audience. Another performer who I know has it in him, just needs approach the character in a different way!

-The sound design: Good grief, they need to do some serious work on the sound design. Lindsay Jones, the designer, is a Broadway newcomer and I'm guessing he's still getting his legs in a theater of this size. Some of the mic mixing is just stupid. Ozzie the guard (who's definitely a minor character) was far more audible than the majority of the LEADS. They DEFINITELY need to boost the volume on Tom Skerrit and Fred Dalton Thompson's mics, since some of their dialogue was inaudible (especially Skerrit's). Also, when performers are situated at the back of the stage, the sound seems dead.

Ultimately, I wasn't crazy about the play. I agree with Whizzer in that it made itself out to have much more gravitas than it actually did. After watching some of the press junket interviews, I came in expecting a substantive discussion on race, and ultimately, it's treatment of the issue was completely shallow. Rupert Holmes' adaptation deserves far more of the blame for this than Mr. Grisham's original source material. Still a fun court drama, though - just don't come in expecting Pulitzer worthy material.

(Side note: The Golden Theater looks stunning since the Shuberts renovated it! It was looking dilapidated and shabby (paint was peeling off the walls and the theater seemed stark) for the longest time, but no more! The detail and artistry of the restored architecture is simply gorgeous, and the new color they painted it with makes the space seem much warmer. The new seat cushions are far more comfortable, even though leg room is still a bit tight.)

Updated On: 10/2/13 at 02:41 AM

I agree with jax's opinion. I saw the Saturday matinee and had a very enjoyable time. I am not sure why one should expect a substantive debate on race in this play. It's a courtroom drama, not an August Wilson play, and delivered a moving and exciting afternoon for me. Patrick Page is up for a Tony (from me) already!

I was there this afternoon and I'm with Whizzer on this one. The show runs nearly exactly 2 hours and 30 minutes, by the way. And I felt a lot of those minutes tick by.

It's unnecessarily repetitive in its themes of race relations (there are a bunch of racist people in the deep South! Who knew?!) and having never read the book nor seen the movie, I have to say I thought it shied away from being everything it could and should have been. The play seems to take the obvious and easy route out of almost every dicey situation its thrown into. Giving us some provocative moments here and there is completely inconsequential when they don't add up to anything, and when they truly seem to be entirely inauthentic and poorly-resolved. It's like watching one of the more uninspired and bland law procedurals on TV...except it's 2 1/2 hours long. The humor is almost embarrassingly broad at times, and the characters are paper-thin. Also, the courtroom scenes are pretty ridiculous, with each lawyer standing up and basically interrupting the other to have these banal tete-a-tetes. No judge would ever allow that B.S. to go down, let alone one presiding over a case this "explosive." The first two hours and twenty minutes build to the verdict, obviously, and when it's finally read, it's alarmingly anticlimactic.

The cast is bland as bland could be. When not even the usually towering Tonya Pinkins can make an impression, you know there's a problem. Patrick Page certainly fares the best, although he's giving a performance we've all seen from him before. The supposed lead, Sebastian Arcelus, who I have nothing against in general as a performer, is criminally vanilla. He practically blends in with the scenery.

It's respectably staged, I suppose, although the heavy-handed projections are way too much and the turntable serves no real purpose. I imagine the critics will not be too fond of this one, and it's too bad. I'd love to see a really juicy, exciting new courtroom drama onstage sometime soon. This isn't it.