GROUNDED

I got tickets at the in-person lottery. Not too crowded. I'll be interested to see what this show is about.

sorry why?

Hathahate

I didn't see it but have a friend who won the lotto last night, this is what she just posted on Facebook:

"So usually i'm not a fan of war-focused plays (find they frequently veer into patriotic propaganda) and usually not the biggest fan of Anne Hathaway's work...but Grounded really blew me away tonight. The play was smart and personal, her performance was gutsy and physically electric and the direction made this one woman show captivating even when Hathaway's back was turned. A definite must see!"

Sorry I didn't get around to writing my thoughts on the first preview sooner but here goes.

I went into this show not being terribly enthused because I don't like war-focused shows either and not the biggest Hathaway fan so the thought of just her on stage for 90 mins didn't fill me with excitement. The main reason going in for me was I love Julie Taymor's direction. I must say that my mind has been changed.

I found the play to be very engaging and really felt for the character finding it to be a very realistic portrayal of life as a drone pilot and family woman. There were only small parts where I thought it became a little monotonous and became bored but think that can be worked out during previews. I'd say 10 mins could be cut.

Hathaway was amazing. It always shocks me how actors are able to do one-man shows because of the sheer amount of dialogue to remember. Having heard stories of the likes of Bette Midler calling for lines throughout the preview period of I'LL EAT YOU LAST I was thinking the same would happen here. Hathaway knew all of her lines and seemed to land all her marks. If she did miss anything I couldn't tell.

Now we come to the best part - the staging. I don't know if this is a spoiler or not but when you walk in there is just sand covering the entire floor and a mirrored wall in the back. This allows for the best use of projections I've ever seen. They're slick and really give you the feeling of different settings.

I'm sorry that the stagecraft malfunctioned during your performance, mordav. The beginning scene is really kind of beautiful but the real magic happens at the end and I loved all of it. I'm not going to spoil any of it here but just wow.

This show might not seem like everyone's taste but I think most people would enjoy it. I don't know if it's selling well just based on Hathaway but think word of mouth will make it a hit.

I kind of would have loved to see that.

On a related note, I find it rather annoying that the creative team (specifically the person who makes sure she's on book) sits in the front rows of the audience and shines a light on the script. It seems to me that they can still hear her from the back where it's less distracting.

She did after the fits performance. Nobody was allowed to be in the lobby after the second show because there was a party going on from what I heard.

Has the lotto been rough?

Anyone else seen it? I'm interested to hear other opinions.

Saw the show last night and thought it was a amazing. I do think it was kinda propagandistic (anti-war), but very well done and very moving.

To answer the above question, they ARE still selling student tickets. I got one last week, and my friend got one last night an hour before the performance, and there were still empty seats in the house. When I bought mine last week, they said they had student tickets available for most performances. I was surprised, as I would have thought that such an a-list star would draw larger crowds.

Updated On: 4/19/15 at 12:37 PM

Does it make a difference whether you are seated in the center or on either side?

This afternoon I was surprised that there were several empty seats in this small theater. In fact, ushers were asking audience members in the back to fill seats closer to the stage.

As for the show itself, I thought Hathaway was good but not so good that she could turn this respectable, over-earnest one-person play into something special.

Grounded did start well, offering some interesting points of view on our endless wars in the Middle East and how, thanks to technology, they are increasingly being fought by soldiers who go home to their families in the suburbs day after day.

However, after 45 minutes or so, the story started to become repetitive and even somewhat cliched -- war is hell, and the people being killed are a lot like the people doing the killing. Also, as the show moved toward its Ozymandian conclusion, I'd begun to be annoyed by the references to Greek myths and other "poetic" dialogue, which seldom sounded convincing in the mouth of Hathaway's AC/DC-loving character.

One thing I found interesting was that, when Hathaway came out to take her bows, she seemed (to me) to be close to tears and finding it difficult to look at the audience, even though she had made frequent eye contact when in character. The distraught look that I thought I saw on her face as she left the stage did a better job of conveying her character's emotions than anything I had seen during the performance proper.