My PILLOWMAN experience!! ~long~

Hey everybody-
for the past two and a half weeks i have been going around the country looking at different colleges and of course the main schools that i wanted to look at were in NY...now i live in wisconsin and come from a family that doesn't have the chance to go to NY every year and see lots of shows my mom took me for my thirteenth birthday and we saw AIDA and KISS ME KATE and once i went with my mom for a business trip she was on and we saw INTO THE WOODS all were great and i love the city and so was very excited that for my birthday i could go see one show of my picking. Now i have always been into musicals and never even really gave plays i thought the only two that i have been in were little church plays but i really really admire Jeff Goldblum and the only musical i had a real desire to see was LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA and that one my mom didn't want to see so i asked what about THE PILLOWMAN not knowing the story or anything and my mom said whatever and so we headed on over to the booth theater and had about a twenty minute chat with the box office guy who was really kind and nice and told us what we needed to know about the show and sent us over to TKTS and we realized that they wouldn't take credit card so we went go back to get tickets full price and the guy gave us the best seats for like a 30 dollar discount!! Seriously he was an awesome dude! Anyways so we go that evening and i was struck at how beautiful the theater was and how small and how there really isn't a bad seat in the house. Anyways...

The Show:
It was the best thing i have ever seen in my entire life. I sat there and was spellbound the entire play which felt alot shorter than it was. It scared the crap out of me and the whole time i was gripping my seat. It was soo funny cuz the guy i was sitting next to was an avid theater go-er and was just very calm the whole time and i was sitting there just clinging on to my sister just waiting for something to pop out or i don't know what but man....i had no idea that theater could just keep your attention and just grab you and hold you. The play is HILARIOUS seriously the audience was rolling but its weird because you're laughing and you feel guilty for it because its soo dark and you're laughing for wrong reasons but there right...i don't know. The set design was amazing and it never got old and i loved how you just felt that they were trapped and i looked it was towering over him and he couldn't escape and the lighting i also thought was great. The way the house and the two rooms appeared i thought was brilliant and i thought that the Jesus girl scene was staged and lit perfectly just the visuals and and the musical and all the technical aspects of it were astonishing. Then there were the performances....whooweee now i realize DOUBT and all those other shows were good and granted i never saw them so keep that in mind but this play deserved soo much more recognition... Billy Crudup's performance was soo honest and heart wrenching that my twelve year old sister who hates me taking her to shows and hates anything with artistic value unless its clothes was bawling at the end and she loved the show and really loved Mr. Crudup in it. He is soo well rounded and the journey that you go on with him is just incredible...you feel his shock adn hurt at every plot turn he just is soo real i have no idea how he does that performance 8 times a week but he was wonderful and definitley the best performance of the night...in a VERY close second was Michael Stuhlbarg as the brother Michael...OMG he captured his character perfectly and just really broke your heart as well to. He was the kind of guy you felt a lot of sympathy for and he seems like this sweet innocent man and Mr. Stuhlbarg pulls that off great but what is even more impressive *****(SPOILER SPOILER)****is that he shows that this character is a killer and as much affection as you feel for him you are truly afraid of him. ***END SPOILER**** Zeljko Ivanek also giving a first class performance showing a true transformation throughout the play that is just amazing to watch and finally the always brilliant Jeff Goldblum he is soo funny in this play his style is just perfect for this and i read the first part of the play at a barnes and nobles the night before we went and my thoughts were that he wasn't right for it but man was i wrong he just was soo powerfuly and funny and the story about the little asain boy just had the audience rolling!! Overall it was an amazing night of theater and storytelling and a night that i will not soon forget...maybe its cuz it's the first real play that i've seen but it just inspired me and really haunted me and i loved it as did my family and we were the first on our feet to give it a much deserved standing o!! now i don't know how much longer it will run but if you haven't seen it yet by all means go it is soo good and deserves a very long run and if you've seen it go again because it just seems like that kind of show that the more you see it the more you notice new things and the more you can explore and i love that in in a play. This play just really re afirmed my love for theater in general.soo jsut thought i would share my amazing night one of the more amazing nights at the theater that this seventeen year old has had.

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oh yeah that was the one thing i didn't like halfway through the second act there was an ambulence outside and we heard it loud and clear the WHOLE time but i geuss that would make sense in the story

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I'm glad you enjoyed the play. I have seen it multiple times. I too felt guilty laughing at some of the jokes because the actual circumstances are so dark. I also highly admire the talents of the leading four. It is a play that connects with an instinct in everyone. Most people view children in a protective and innocent nature and that is why The Pillowman tugs at your heart. Not to mention the plight of a writer in a totalitarian state who just wants his work to live. And the love of brothers and the terrible experiences of parental abuse. Come to think of it, minus the totalitarian state, The Pillowman hits on many of the real life themes plaguing today's world and the sick perverts that actually would do some of those things.

Anyway, this year is a good one for plays on Broadway. Doubt, The Pillowman, Glenngarry.., On Golden Pond (before it closed).

Glad you enjoyed it gushof - maybe you and others in this thread can help me with something concerning this play. I saw it back in June and left the theatre completely astonished. What astonished me is how anyone could see any redeeming value in this shabby little shocker of a play. In 27 years of theatre-going, I have never been so completely underwhelmed, almost to the point of wanting my money back. My question is, performances aside, design elements aside, what is the message of this play that makes it worthwhile? I would love to read some opinions as clearly I am in the minority here...

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I think that the play has no "message" as you describe it here. I saw the play yesterday, and I am still trying to figure out my reactions. Part of me thinks the play is--deliberately--a major con. As Brantley says, it's about the power and the necessity of stories, of narratives. I need to think about this some more.

*** SPOILER****
i thought this story was skillfully told, and yes i get the point about the power of stories--but i thought the sensibility behind it was adolescent bollux. if only little children knew how awful life would be--they'd just off themselves right then and there. the noble nihilist. i thought "f-you" to the playwright. i thought his artist as protagonist was way too precious. which is not to say i didn't believe the relationships onstage, etc. or the vaudvillian interchanges in the midst of the darkest moments--Beckett was irish too.

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Updated On: 8/1/05 at 03:07 PM

Gymman - thank you for using the word glib. This is the adjective I use most often in describing what turned me off to this to friends. Glad to see I was not alone.

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Well, I think what's supposed to matter here is the stories, because they endure. Life may be s..., but stories stick around. And not "art"--there;s no sense that K's stories in the play are "art."

yes, I think that's supposed to be the point.
The stories are just that...stories. They are not "art," whatever that is. I suppose they "bear witness" to K's life?

hey interesting discussion-
i also don't know if there really was a message per se to the play...i kind of got the does art (or stories) inspire violence but then it sort of drifted from that and never really answered it. I also didn't think of Katurian as a real hero in the sense of word....i think the beauty of Crudups performance is that you didn't just heroism...you saw a real man who had flaws and in my opinion needed serious mental help...i think that those stories showed us that. That he is deeply disturbed from his childhood are they stories worth saving...i don't know? They definitley reminded me of those stories that you tell at camp that scare you and that entertain you...but i think that reason that alot of the audience wants katurian's stories to be saved is that these stories are his life and lifes work and they are ****SPOILER**** the only real thing he has now that he has lost his family******END SPOILER**** he is a lonley man and you can tell that his characters that he creates are his only friends and that the only way he will be remembered is through these stories and so for that i wanted them to be saved. I think that there is soo much of this play to be discovered and that for now is my two cents....oh and muppet i don't write for you or anyone i just wanted to put my experience in words and thought i'd share sorry if it offended you

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perfectly said i can understand coming out maybe not liking it but definitly not underwhelmed

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Thank you Mr. TN - I didn't have the energy today to go that in depth - and you said it far better than I could have anyway.