#51
Posted: 11/20/08 at 3:52pm
I was not so excited about the stunt-star-casting in this show, although when I read the play, I heard John L’s voice (in Teach) – it was uncanny.
The play (today) is problematic in the sense that what was aggressive and shocking in 1974 is no longer shocking. To direct it/play it as if we were still in the ‘70s would have been a disaster.
Some reviewers have praised Bob Falls’ having found (or going for) the humanity underneath the bluster of these characters’ connections, and I agree with those reviewers.
I suppose you could criticize each actors’ choices in the way they developed the characters – “John L’s Teach wasn’t aggressive enough…Haley’s Bobby was too whiny…” – I find that superficial. The focus should be on the nature of the connectedness between the three, and whether that connection brings us into the core of the play, gives us the meaning of the work.
Perhaps the audience would have “got it” if it had been played slightly more melodramatically, but I think that’s for lazy listeners. I thought John’s twitchy Teach was perfectly in line with the author’s intent, Cedric established a solid Big-Daddy after about the first 10 minutes of act one, and Haley, with so little to work with, was a revelation.
The Bobby character holds the mystery of the play, yet he is supposed to be “dim-witted,” either using or recovering from using heroin, and orphaned – but still has the wherewithal to scheme alongside Donny. To play him “retarded” is to miss the mark completely; to play him as a straight junkie would also be a mistake. My expectation was that Haley was an actor first, (movie actor second) and that he would have done the work necessary to develop the character in such a way that we would experience him as consistent with the forward motion of the story.
The part is so thin, and his performance fell so perfectly into place, that I think people missed it completely. I think that people’s pre-conceptions of seeing a scary, loud, bombastic play prevented them from seeing what was actually there.
My question was always, “why now?” What does this play have to tell us – really – now? [That one’s up for grabs.] But, losing the show due to early closure deprives us of three terrific performances, and it will be a shame to miss those.
It is a corruption that without The Big Three writing Raves, nowadays, you can’t make a go of it, and the ramifications of that are truly frightening.
The play (today) is problematic in the sense that what was aggressive and shocking in 1974 is no longer shocking. To direct it/play it as if we were still in the ‘70s would have been a disaster.
Some reviewers have praised Bob Falls’ having found (or going for) the humanity underneath the bluster of these characters’ connections, and I agree with those reviewers.
I suppose you could criticize each actors’ choices in the way they developed the characters – “John L’s Teach wasn’t aggressive enough…Haley’s Bobby was too whiny…” – I find that superficial. The focus should be on the nature of the connectedness between the three, and whether that connection brings us into the core of the play, gives us the meaning of the work.
Perhaps the audience would have “got it” if it had been played slightly more melodramatically, but I think that’s for lazy listeners. I thought John’s twitchy Teach was perfectly in line with the author’s intent, Cedric established a solid Big-Daddy after about the first 10 minutes of act one, and Haley, with so little to work with, was a revelation.
The Bobby character holds the mystery of the play, yet he is supposed to be “dim-witted,” either using or recovering from using heroin, and orphaned – but still has the wherewithal to scheme alongside Donny. To play him “retarded” is to miss the mark completely; to play him as a straight junkie would also be a mistake. My expectation was that Haley was an actor first, (movie actor second) and that he would have done the work necessary to develop the character in such a way that we would experience him as consistent with the forward motion of the story.
The part is so thin, and his performance fell so perfectly into place, that I think people missed it completely. I think that people’s pre-conceptions of seeing a scary, loud, bombastic play prevented them from seeing what was actually there.
My question was always, “why now?” What does this play have to tell us – really – now? [That one’s up for grabs.] But, losing the show due to early closure deprives us of three terrific performances, and it will be a shame to miss those.
It is a corruption that without The Big Three writing Raves, nowadays, you can’t make a go of it, and the ramifications of that are truly frightening.
