Has anyone seen MIDDLETOWN at the Vineyard?

[Kad]

Posted: 10/22/10 at 5:47pm

I honestly forgot all about this place, which is strange as Will Eno is one of my favorite playwrights. Has anyone seen it yet? ...Anyone planning to see it?

[After Eight]

Posted: 10/23/10 at 9:07pm

I can't say I enjoyed this one. It's one of those ultra quirky affairs in which oddball characters spout philosophical musings about life and death in arch, longwinded phrases that never would have remotely emanated from any person's mouth. I found it all drab, tedious and mildly irritating.

Also, there is quite a bit of direct address to the audience, the bane of recent drama. I've hated this trend for years now, and Isherwood just wrote a column expressing his exasperation at this substitute for good playwriting. Interesting that he cited "Chad Deity" as a striking culprit in this regard, since that was exactly my feeling during that horrible ordeal of a play.

But back to this play, there is also a cutesy-poo scene of self-referentiality that adds absolutely nothing but an extra ten minutes to a play that is in essence just so much blather.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 10/24/10 at 9:14am

In telling people about it, I've referred to it as an unintelligible version of OUR TOWN without the pathos.

It's well-acted (especially James McMenamin) though pointless; OUR TOWN said everything Eno was trying to say without the arch, "I'm clearly writing for characters, not people" dialogue.