APPROPRIATE Reviews- Page 5

[theaterdarling]

Posted: 1/24/24 at 3:10am

No joy in saying this, but I am with the naysayers. Jesse Green was so very, very right -- the first time. For those of you who did not click through to or otherwise remember the original review of the off-Broadway production he imbedded in his review of the Broadway production posted above, here: 

"The play is as overstuffed as the house, but at least the house gets cleaned during the action. The play just gets more cluttered. Starting with the title, which is awkward whether understood in its verbal or adjectival sense, Jacobs-Jenkins wants things both ways and ends up with neither. Is Appropriate a comic tragedy? A tragic comedy? No, just a mess, undercooked and overexplained, with enough pregnant symbols (dark lake, shrieking cicadas, two graveyards) for an Ibsen festival. Under Liesl Tommy’s direction, the leading actors, all better elsewhere, have no choice but to hack their way through the emotional underbrush, shouting their arias of self-pity as they go. 

Granted, great plays have been written about some of the same kinds of characters: viragos, pedophiles, wingnuts, dingbats. But in — let’s say — Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? or How I Learned to Drive, the playwright finds ways to seduce us into accepting his creatures as real and even attractive. That doesn’t happen here. The Lafayettes are under no one’s control; all you want is to get away from them. Fortunately, people like that don’t live in real houses. They live only in theaters, and you get to leave them there."

Spot on. I am as confused as Green was as to why he did a 180, as the play's faults remain the same in the latest iteration. Green had no blind spot (in this case, at least) warranting a mea culpa. The above was as clear-eyed and unbelievably decisive review as Green has ever given. The show still wants to be a lot of things and, still, instead, is nothing in particular. Actors are still doing a lot of heavy emoting, spouting about family resentments/secrets but saying so little of cohesive, thematic merit. I love, love, love a good dysfunctional family drama, but the family has to be an interesting one --even if not particularly likeable. Despite the talent pool on stage, I've never seen a larger collection of flat, un-finely etched characters uttering so many uninspired lines to one another to such useless dramatic effect on any stage anywhere Sometimes the words spoken lent so little to constructing a remotely interesting drama, t thought they were being spoken in a foreign language that I just couldn't understand.

The sage burning hippie chick girlfriend as the outsider dropped into the family chaos was, most egregiously, so stock and trope-y she was an insult to stock and trope-y -- Fanning could not make anything interesting of it, but it was an impossible and thankless task from the get-go. I think Paulson and Stoll are starting to run the risk of being over-praised and standing o-ed just for showing up. There was nothing resonant to either's performance, but they are also not miracle workers and could not rescue this play. 

God bless that a new drama is drawing people in at top dollar and being enjoyed by many and they feel they are getting their money's worth, but, for me, it was just a big dramatic bamboozle - and not in any good way. 

The good news (for me) is that having unsuccessfully entered the lottery that morning, I walked up to box office an hour before last week's Wednesday matinee and was able to get a mezz seat for $99 - had I spent any more on this, I would have wept profusely.

[idioteque...]

Posted: 1/24/24 at 8:47pm

Anyone able to comment on what kind of rush seats are being given?

 

Also is it all but confirmed this may get a transfer? Possible it might be easier to get better seats through there in lottery or tdf or rush?

[TheQuibbler]

Posted: 1/25/24 at 9:24am

I'm sure it doesn't work anymore, but was there a mailer discount code for this? I had a mailer but must have thrown it away. 

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 1/29/24 at 2:04pm

So wanted to catch during my quick trip. The today tix rush was impossible to win. When I did check with the box office Sunday afternoon had one seat left at $299 ( $453 Australian dollars ) which is way too much for any show. 

[chrishuyen]

Posted: 1/29/24 at 3:26pm

I saw this Saturday night and I liked it but didn't love it--it felt to me like an early work of a playwright who wasn't as experienced (which I suppose is true).  It has a lot of ideas and threads I would love to unravel, but it seems to only be interested in bringing up different topics and then glossing over them to go on to the next topic.  So I think it would be a really interesting play to read and study the text for, but in the show, everything seemed to be going by a bit too fast to make a real impact.

Though, I really enjoyed the experience of the show.  The actors are all quite fantastic and they have a great sense for comedy within the drama, so it's a fun show to sit through.  The characters are unlikeable in turns but in a delicious way that makes it fun to watch them fighting it out, but at the same time I think it's easy to understand their point of view and why they think the way they do (even if I personally disagree), and I was definitely siding with different people throughout different parts of the show.

To me it felt like the play was building up to more and more revelations until the family (particularly Toni) would not be able to avoid a certain truth staring them in the face, but instead it seemed to pivot, focusing on the relationship of the siblings rather than the legacy of their family history so I left the play feeling a bit unsatisfied.  Nothing is really resolved about any of the issues brought up through the play, and while in other plays that can feel like a true representation of real life, here it just felt like a presentation of a messy family dynamic and the audience was left to figure out what they wanted to take away from it, without much direction from the playwright.  The last few minutes after the dialogue ends I did think were beautifully done (was that new for this production or has a version of that been in prior productions?) but it also felt like the message that that was trying to give didn't really align with any of the other messages that had been in the rest of the play.

[BoringBoredBoard40]

Posted: 1/29/24 at 11:15pm

This is 100% transferring, the first performance scheduled around March 25th, 13 week run.

Wondering how this will impact the final weeks of sales of the 2ST run

[djoko84]

Posted: 2/1/24 at 1:58am

I think it's the best play I've ever seen. Having said that, I'm curious how people interpret the ending with the house. I'm guessing you'll have to put a spoiler warning, but I'd like to read what people think. 

[ANewBrainn]

Posted: 2/1/24 at 11:25am

Has anyone had any luck with the today tix rush?  I found it completely impossible after trying for weeks.  Eventually gave up and had a student friend get us the student rush tickets so I was able to see the show.

[A Justified Bean]

Posted: 2/1/24 at 11:44am

djoko84 said: "I think it's the best play I've ever seen. Having said that, I'm curious how people interpret the ending with the house. I'm guessing you'll have to put a spoiler warning, but I'd like to read what people think."

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content

I thought the lighting and set designers did a great job showing the passage of time with the fast flashes and having different things fall apart.  I got the sense that they just left the house, which fell into disrepair over the years just like their family.  I'm not sure if this would've been obstructed for folks on house left, but they show what appeared to be a drug user walking around the basement steps in that sequence which makes me think that someone could've found it and used it as a den at once point.  (It did make me wonder if that was the brother squatting.) My friend commented that the cicadas seemed louder again at the end, perhaps indicating that another 13 years had passed during that sequence. 

 

[OhHiii]

Posted: 2/1/24 at 2:12pm

BoringBoredBoard40 said: "This is 100% transferring, the first performance scheduled around March 25th, 13 week run.

Wondering how this will impact the final weeks of sales of the 2ST run"

Yep, Belasco. SO happy about this. I'll be able to see it affordably. Wonder when they plan on announcing it. Next week would probably be as late as they could unless they're giving space for How To Dance In Ohio to close first.

[djoko84]

Posted: 2/2/24 at 2:42am

A Justified Bean said: "djoko84 said: "I think it's the best play I've ever seen. Having said that, I'm curious how people interpret the ending with the house. I'm guessing you'll have to put a spoiler warning, but I'd like to read what people think."

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content

I thought the lighting and set designers did a great job showing the passage of time with the fast flashes and having different things fall apart. I got the sense that they just left the house, which fell into disrepair over the years just like their family. I'm not sure if this would've been obstructed for folks on house left, but they show what appeared to be a drug user walking around the basement steps in that sequence which makes me think that someone could've found it and used it as a den at once point. (It did make me wonder if that was the brother squatting.) My friend commented that the cicadas seemed louder again at the end, perhaps indicating that another 13 years had passed during that sequence.

"

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content

That was my take too - that the rotting house represented the rotting of the family.

 

[corthomas]

Posted: 2/2/24 at 3:13pm

Do you know when the transfer will be announced? 

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 3/25/24 at 11:36am

Is anyone here going to tonight’s first performance at the Belasco?

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 3/25/24 at 4:32pm

EDSOSLO858 said: "Is anyone here going to tonight’s first performance at the Belasco?"

Can anyone going in the next few days let me know how high the stage is. The first few rows are cheaper than mid orchestra. I need to buy tickets soon but don’t want to be craning my neck. Thank you. 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 3/25/24 at 11:58pm

Bettyboy72 said: "Can anyone going in the next few days let me know how high the stage is. The first few rows are cheaper than mid orchestra. I need to buy tickets soon but don’t want to be craning my neck. Thank you."

I cannot answer your question, but I will say that this is a show I prefer from a vantage point (front of mezz>orchestra) but not the first few rows of orchestra regardless of stage height because there is quite a bit of action played on the large staircase and the landing above. So there is craning pretty far back I would think. 

Also, not asked but I would also say HL>HR.

[CoffeeBreak]

Posted: 3/26/24 at 12:52am

Far house left sucks cause you miss some of the action stage right.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Posted: 3/26/24 at 2:16am

EDSOSLO858 said: "Is anyone here going to tonight’s first performance at the Belasco?"

I was there tonight. After being one of those people who was never able to crack TodayTix's digital rush for the Hayes Theater run, I won the new lottery on the first try. They gave me Left Orchestra Row J, Seat 21. 

Considering it was Ella Beatty's first performance as River, I thought she did a pretty good job. By most of the other characters, River is dismissed as 23-year-old new-age airhead, but she needs to be played to have more depth. Most of time Beatty calibrated that correctly, occasionally it felt like she was playing a broad caricature wandering onstage from a production of Larissa FastHorse's Thanksgiving Play. 

During the curtain call, a stagehand brought Beatty a bouquet of flowers.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 3/26/24 at 11:33am

HogansHero said: "Bettyboy72 said: "Can anyone going in the next few days let me know how high the stage is. The first few rows are cheaper than mid orchestra. I need to buy tickets soon but don’t want to be craning my neck. Thank you."

I cannot answer your question, but I will say that this is a show I prefer from a vantage point (front of mezz>orchestra) but not the first few rows of orchestra regardless of stage height because there is quite a bit of action played on the large staircase and the landing above. So there is craning pretty far back I would think.

Also, not asked but I would also say HL>HR."

Thanks Hogan, I was thinking first row mezz, but I've seen reviews of the Belasco with people complaining about the railing in front of them. I wonder how bad it is. 

 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 3/26/24 at 12:19pm

Bettyboy72 said: "Thanks Hogan, I was thinking first row mezz, but I've seen reviews of the Belasco with people complaining about the railing in front of them. I wonder how bad it is."

I don't recall about the rail but I think maybe a safer bet would be 2nd row. Belasco mezz is pretty well raked (full step).

[veronicamae]

Posted: 3/26/24 at 10:38pm

Bettyboy72 said: "HogansHero said: "Bettyboy72 said: "Can anyone going in the next few days let me know how high the stage is. The first few rows are cheaper than mid orchestra. I need to buy tickets soon but don’t want to be craning my neck. Thank you."

I cannot answer your question, but I will say that this is a show I prefer from a vantage point (front of mezz>orchestra) but not the first few rows of orchestra regardless of stage height because there is quite a bit of action played on the large staircase and the landing above. So there is craning pretty far back I would think.

Also, not asked but I would also say HL>HR."

Thanks Hogan, I was thinking first row mezz, but I've seen reviews of the Belasco with people complaining about the railing in front of them. I wonder how bad it is."

I made note of that rail tonight from Mezz Row E, commenting about it to my friend - it is really quite high and I would not have been happy in the front row at my meager height of 5'4".

In terms of the show - everyone gave phenomenal performances and I hated every single character and have never been more miserable in a theater than I was tonight despite the show being very good and everyone being very good - it's why it was so miserable.

Loved the passage of time at the end.

Updated On: 3/26/24 at 10:38 PM

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 4/1/24 at 10:40pm

Any more thoughts on the best place to sit since the move to the Belasco? Are the first few rows ok? 

[Shubert Alley Cat]

Posted: 4/2/24 at 12:03am

I sat in Mezz E2 on Saturday.  Very happy with the view at the price I paid.

And the show was fantastic!

[PipingHotPiccolo]

Posted: 4/2/24 at 8:24am

Certainly seems like theyre discounting the sides of the mezz-- curious if anyone has any insight as to why? Trying to grab tickets for this soon.

[wewdie]

Posted: 4/4/24 at 1:45pm

Hi all, any merch being sold with the transfer? 

[ardiem]

Posted: 4/20/24 at 11:53pm

I saw the Belasco transfer tonight and was kind of shocked at how much sound from outside bled through into the theater. I can't even count the number of times I heard Empire State of Mind blaring and overpowering the non-amplified sound from the stage.