Last Easter -- A Lifetime Movie

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/7/04 at 3:13pm

After some good word of mouth both here and on other boards, I went last night expecting to see a great play with some great performances -- well at least I got one out of two, sorta. "Last Easter," the latest play from Byrony Lavery of "Frozen" fame, is a bland, underwritten, unimaginative, utterly predictable evening of theatre. Part road movie, part disease-of-the-week weepy, it's plays like a mediocre Lifetime movie (look for Judith Light and Jim J Bullock to head the cast if this is ever adapted for television). It was so devoid of any depth or substance or surprise, I kept wishing I had a remote control to fast forward through large portions of it -- with no plot twists (very little plot actually) of any kind, one could have left the theatre midway through act one, come back midway through act two and not missed a single thing (except a dozen of the most painfully unfunny jokes I've heard since third grade ..... actually I think I heard most of them in third grade and didn't find them funny then).

Actors are wonderful creatures, oftentimes capable of spinning straw into gold and making something out of nothing. Here, this gifted ensemble almost manages to spin the straw into something close to tin foil, but little more. It's not their fault -- they haven't been given characters to play; just stock "types" -- one dimensional sketches that even talented players cannot flesh out. Jeffrey Carlson plays the stereotypical gay stock character -- a swishy, flamboyant, promiscuous sometime drag queen who goes about tossing off quips and singing Judy Garland tunes. Clea Lewis played her patented ditz character. Florencia Lozano is the blousy drunk drama queen straight out of AbFab.

Veanne Cox, one of our most gifted stage actors, doesn't even get a stock character to play -- she plays a disease. Lavery's technique for constructing characters (perhaps she read this in a book somewhere -- she should burn it) seems to involve reading lots of books on arcane subject matter -- I won't comment here on her plagiarism case -- and then using the info to write lots of "did you know?" mini-monologues crammed with details from the books, thus giving characters the illusion of (superficial) depth and something to yammer on about until the next lame quip comes along (in this case Cox's character carries on about Caravaggio and tulips). The problem is that there's no real character development. Cox plays some sick British lady sitting in a chair -- that's who she is, what defines her and nothing else, so that's all Cox has to play.

After seeing the play, I still have no idea who Cox's character is, except for the most basic of details -- she's a lighting designer; she's British; she's dying of cancer. I found that out in the first five minutes and after watching her for two hours sit in a chair and be sick, that's still all I know about her. She has this collection of types, er, friends, that hang around her. I know nothing about them (other than they all seem to be "artistic"), why they're all friends, what draws them to one another, their backgrounds, etc... Nothing.

Halfway through the play I realized I really didn't care about any of the people on the stage, because the playwright hadn't given me a reason to care. I had no emotional investment whatsoever because I still didn't know anything about them other than their ability to deliver a one-liner (the whole thing plays like a bad, unfunny sitcom).

Where was the conflict? The plot twists? The quirks and contradictions that make characters interesting? Where's the substance? Why are talented actors wasting their energies on such a lousy, pedestrian play? Coming after Wit and Lisa Kron's Well and The Shadow Box and Baltimore Waltz and As Is and Marvin's Room and The Waverly Gallery and so many other plays dealing with terminal illness, Last Easter is a flat-footed, unambitious, plodding, predictable work that wastes the talents of those involved in this production. Save your money and watch Lifetime.

[Mary_Ethel]

Posted: 10/7/04 at 3:19pm

Do you know George Bernard Shaw's formula for writing a play?:

Act I: Introduce Characters

Act II: Get Them "Up a Tree"

Act III: Throw Rocks at Them

Act IV: Get Them Down


Unfortunately, MOST new plays today lack such tight construction.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/7/04 at 3:21pm

That's a great quote -- I plan on stealing it.

[Mary_Ethel]

Posted: 10/7/04 at 3:23pm

You'll get my bill in the mail, Margo. :)

[HJAJtheFirst]

Posted: 10/7/04 at 3:34pm

Margo,
You seem to know alot about theater but then again how could you write about a show before it opens? I always thought that wasn't proper? It's just an opinion so don't go all crazy.

[GirlfriendFromCanada]

Posted: 10/7/04 at 3:37pm

I had the same issues with the characters. I had no one to care about. As much as I despise getting hit over the head with information about characters, there was too little here. No, we didn't need to know when the characters met, exactly why they were friends, their real hair color or their siblings names, but they could have used SOMETHING. I found myself having trouble caring that June was dying because I didn't KNOW her. I could barely even see why her friends would miss her, because it was not displayed to me. Her importance in their life was merely through what the little her friends illustrated. From the first scene, she is sick and they are upset, but we never see WHO they are losing or WHY it's so hard for them aside from her being a friend. Maybe for some people that is enough, but it seemed lacking to me.

I will admit the performances were good. I feel like the performances of Gash and Joy made it seem like they were the two carrying the play. I'm not sure if that was the intent, but it worked for me. Leah just became annoying after awhile, mostly because everything she said blended together. And I do feel Veanne Cox could have done a little something more with what she had to work with, but there she did fine. Again, the little caring I did went toward Gash and Joy (and the mysterious Howie), and not toward the person I think we were supposed to care most about.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/7/04 at 3:47pm

Ahem.

HJAJtheFirst --

1) That's what we do here on these boards, in case you haven't noticed. I paid for my ticket and the show is open to the public, so I have a right to give my opinion about it. Producers charge exactly the same amount for a show in previews as they do after opening, unlike the old days, so they are implying that the show is a finished product that merits being evaluated as such. So I calls em as I sees em and let the chips fall.

2) Tonight is opening night for Last Easter. The show has been frozen for at least a week. The performance I saw last night was actually the show AFTER the critics' preview -- the performance that will be the basis for the reviews that will start showing up on line in a few hours. All the reviews for Last Easter are already written and posted with their editors -- they simply await publication. Heck, Newsday and the AP have often even posted reviews on line the morning of the opening, many hours before the curtain went up. If anything, considering this is a theatre board (and I've been reading reviews of Last Easter on this board and at ATC for weeks) my review is LATE, not early.

Updated On: 10/7/04 at 03:47 PM

[Mary_Ethel]

Posted: 10/7/04 at 3:52pm

If Theater Critics "can't make" a show's opening, they will attend a preview performance and write an opening night review based upon that.

IS THAT REASONABLE?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/7/04 at 3:57pm

Critics in NY haven't gone to opening night in decades. Frank Rich changed the practice forever when he bought a ticket for one of the last previews of Amadeus because he wanted to have time to write a thoughtful review and not just dash something off in an hour to make deadline. Word got out, controversy ensued, but the upshot of it was, for every Broadway show since then, one of the last previews before opening night is a designated "critics' preview" and that performance will constitute the basis of the review.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 10/7/04 at 4:11pm

And also don't forget that we are not critics. We are the public and this is a place for us to share our opinions on a show. I've never heard of anyone seeing a show in it's first preview and raving about it than have somebody ask them to please refrain because the show hasn't officialy opened yet.

[Plum]

Posted: 10/14/04 at 5:19pm

I missed this thread, but I think I might have gone to see Last Easter even if I hadn't, if only for Veanne Cox. Sadly, I have to agree with Margo. This play is less- well, frozen- than Frozen, but once again I think I found myself identifying with the actors more than the writing. The reliance on monologues is what gave both plays their static quality, so it's nice to see a little more dialogue (and a lot more humor) in this play.

I thought all 4 actors did their best with what they had. Lozano's character was my least favorite, but she finally managed to make me feel something when she sobered up and "talked" to her ex-boyfriend once again. Carlson played his character type perfectly, with compassion and without (thankfully) going over the top. Lewis' character was empty- I was intrigued by what she said about her hands in Act II, but nothing came of it.

Cox's character was, sadly, much too passive. Like Margo said, she was mostly a disease sitting in a chair. I went to see the play for her sake, because I loved her performance in Caroline, or Change. She managed to wring some affecting moments out of the writing, especially in Act II, and it was great to be sitting about 10 feet away from her, but overall I was a bit disappointed.

I didn't hate Last Easter. I just didn't find a lot about it to love. Except a few of the jokes. :)