BARBECUE Previews

Anyone going tonight? I won tickets through the lottery so I'll be there.

I also won lotto tickets!! I'm there right now! Very excited to see this!

I absolutely loved it last night. You would never know you were watching a first preview, they were so tight, save but one minor line slip up, it seemed to me. The writing is very funny, filled with genuinely hilarious one liners and great barbs, delivered by a fantastic and very, very funny cast. Go see this show!! I was entertained from minute one until the end. The final scene had the audience in hysterics.

I cannot wait to go back and see this after they have a few more performances under their belts!

The set is made up of two sets of community BBQ's with picnic tables, and the backdrop are vertical screens at different levels displaying the woods that they are in, very plain, but pretty to look at. The lighting is fine.

There is a huge twist at the end of Act 1, and much like Into the Woods and Sunday, Act 1 is setup, and act 2 is the payoff, where the themes are explored. I can't talk about the rest of it without spoiling the twist, so read below at your own risk.

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There are reveals upon reveals in the second act, and it's a little complicated to explain, so bear with me. the whole first act is a scene with a white trash family - father, mother, two sisters - who are staging a BBQ intervention for the third daughter who is addicted to drugs (crack). after a random black out, we now see a new family, who are African American counterparts to the white family- same style of clothing, color of hair, attitude, etc. this goes back and forth a few times, while the story keeps moving ahead. I think everyone in the audience knew where the play was heading, and then at the End of Act 1, you find out that..

SPOILER ALERT

the whole thing is a movie being filmed. booms and cameramen come out of the wings to reapply makeup and all that to the "actors" - blackout. I was legitimately surprised.

So the second act opens back at the scene of the BBQ, one year earlier. Without giving too much away, you find out that the black Barbara, the one being intervened, is an enormous Halle Berry/Oprah type movie star, and she is meeting the white Barbara (the actual drug addict) to acquire the rights to her life so she can make a movie and win a whole bunch of Oscars. It's a very well done and revealing scene where more and more information starts to come out about how much truth the white Barbara may or may not be telling.

At this point, the plays' themes come out which deal with the lies we tell ourselves, the lies we tell each other, media perception of celebrities, audiences' perception of celebrity fueled by "half truths" and media manipulation, and how people are treated in the limelight.

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I loved this play!! It was revealing and had a lot to say without being preachy, and most of all, very entertaining.

I didn't have quite the same reaction as Pippin. I don't think the entire audience was in hysterics. There were a few members who overdid it a lot with the laughter to the point of distraction. I enjoyed the first act but felt the second act to be a pretty lifeless bore in comparison. Just so everyone is aware, the Playbills are not given out until intermission as to not spoil the main gimmick of the play. It's very difficult to review the play without spoiling that. I will keep this pretty much spoiler free. The play itself is funny but I don't think it necessarily warrants the entire two hours because it's never actually saying anything as much as the playwright pretends that he is.

In terms of the actors, I think the black cast is far better with the material. The one exception is Arden Myrin who I think has the comedic chops to handle it. The opening scene of the second act is carried by Samantha Soule and Tamberla Perry and I don't think they have the chops to have such focus places on them. I've seen Samantha Soule in four shows now and I think her performances are all pretty much the same. The set is serviceable enough and lends itself to the whole symmetry aspect of the play.

I'm not saying the play isn't enjoyable but I think I would have liked it more if the second act hadn't happened. This is something I'd probably recommend waiting a few performances to attend because there needs to be some changes to the script.

Saw this last night, and had mixed feelings. Overall, I'd say it was certainly an interesting night at the theatre. It's worth seeing, but I wouldn't put it high on your priority list.

I agree that the directing and/or the acting was inconsistent. The writing definitely had clunky moments as well.

The first act dragged a bit, but I thought the second act was great payoff for it. The play absolutely wouldn't work without the second act.

But it sure is a unique piece, and definitely engaging and complex enough to keep me interested.

I saw this Thursday and really enjoyed it. The first act was very funny - although the directing and casting was inconsistent. Becky Ann Baker and Kim Wayans impressed me the most during the first hour - they really drove the show forward, and although they had many funny lines, they were what kept me interested in the whole "intervention" storyline. I think Kim's monologue at the end of the first act was my favorite part of the show - funny, yet with pathos. Certain characters weren't explored very well, which caused an imbalance in the show, but I could deal with that. Arden Myrin and Heather Alicia Simms probably fared the worst in my eyes, but that mostly had to with writing and direction.

The second act is clearly all about payoff. I was ready for that, yet very little seemed to come of anything. Although Samantha Soule gave an impressive performance, the writing and direction were not on her side. On the other hand, Tamberla Perry was given the best material, yet she never seemed to have a complete sense of who her character was. She kept switching characters, it seemed (and not like the accent gag, the actual character). My general thoughts on the show was "why?" Everything "explored" in the second act was interesting, yet nothing was specifically mined into. Nothing ever seemed to come of anything. It was odd that so many relevant things were branched into, yet nothing was actually explored. One wondered what the point of the show was if they weren't going to really dig deep into the topic. Everything was played for comic effect, which diminished some of the actual worthwhile things the piece tried to say. And in the case of this play, without the payoff, there isn't much of a show.

I really encourage anyone who can to go to the show - you will never be bored. The show is short, funny, and very entertaining. Only after viewing you may wonder what the point of it was - and the author very clearly wants you to know that there is a point to his show. The problem is that he never does anything new with his point that makes you think. And that's bad when the show isn't much more than the payoff that doesn't quite pay off.

Updated On: 9/27/15 at 02:32 AM

Like other posters, I was left at the end unsure of what the playwright was saying. During the play, I had the strange sensation that I was watching something very novel, and also the feeling that I had seen it all before.

I had loved Bootycandy, despite its flaws, and I was eager to see Barbecue. I felt that Bootycandy would have benefited from having a separate director instead of having O'Hara directing his own work. But I felt that Barbecue suffered from some of the same meandering direction, scenes going on far too long. Also, SPOILER ALERT: In Barbecue, at one point, the lights come on, and the audience learns that we're actually watching the filming of a movie. Bootycandy did something similar, after the actors in one of the skits rebelled, and the stage manager came out and raised the lights, etc. END SPOILER

I'm still scratching my head over this one!

Updated On: 9/28/15 at 12:15 AM

Saw this tonight as I'm a BIG fan of Constance & Arden (both wasted in this)

my issue with Robert having seen both this and Bootycandy, is he has all these interesting ideas and view points and both plays just putter out. When the lights went down after the last scene of this one I was like "this can't be the end". The other issue is i feel like he's a **** you playwright, for example in this I was REALLY compelled by what was happening in the first act, then it goes TWIST and suddenly its like hey you know that story you were really enjoying in the first act, its TOTALLY A LIE and your an idiot for falling into my trap.

i more so meant the twist of "Hey most of my memoir was a lie" then the other twist.