Nice Fish at the ART/then St. Ann's

I love the prose poetry of Lewis Jenkins so I may be a little better prepared for this.

How many people in the ensemble?

Didn't Rylance co-write this? He might just have an EOT year, at least in terms of nominations.

I saw this at the Guthrie a few years ago, and I agree that it's a lot of fun. But I'm a huge Rylance fan, so I'm probably biased.

It's not on Broadway - so no EGOT this year.

I like having little preconceived ideas, even given that....it is not necessary. Imho

Actually Ripped Man is right - I was thinking EOT in a single year, forgetting that NICE FISH isn't Broadway eligible. But I am sure that if he gets the Oscar and Emmy, Rylance won't complain.

And you probably don't need to read Jenkins's work beforehand. If you want a hint, Rylance recited two of his poems as acceptance speeches, if I recall correctly. But there is a paperback called TIN FLAG available that contains NICE FISH poems, if you are interested.

I love Mark Rylance in anything he does.

This wasn't as easy to love.

I think they did the best they could with the script, and the effects are pretty good considering what they have to work with, but just like with Ice Fishing, you have to put up with some tedium.

The two leads play well off of each other. The other three cast members are less "interactive".

Just like you can take a great songwriter's songs and make a jukebox musical with them that might be pretty good, but rarely will be amazing, you can take a poet's poems and make a play with them that might be pretty good and that's what they've done here.

Best part was there was a talkback after the show (huge turnout, considering it was snowing pretty hard here by then) and one woman had "a question for the guy at the end" so they started to hand the microphone to one of the other actors and she interrupted with "no, the other end", so they gave the mic back to Rylance. She had no idea.

Only at the ART until 2/7, methinks. (Just check the American Rep website.) NO idea about the run at St. Anne's.

95 minutes, if that's what was meant

I just saw it tonight, and I agree with you. I LOVE the first half, and can't help feeling that the play disintegrated towards the end. What was that all about? It's almost like the play has been re-written TWICE by two sets of different writers the second half, which I know certainly that was NOT the case.

I'm still glad I saw it, for the two leads were AMAZING!! I just wish I knew how to interpret the second half.

RippedMan said: "What exactly is it about? "

Someone earlier in the thread astutely compared it to a jukebox musical, only instead of songs, it's prose poetry. Basically, it's centered around 2 men who are ice-fishing. In the tedium of waiting out in the cold waiting for the fish to bite (think: Waiting for Godot), we see both men (and the people they interact with) perform a series of introspective monologues, about life, ice-fishing, and other miscellany. All of these monologues were written by the prose poet, Louis Jenkins, and are quite thought-provoking and well-written. They attempt to tie it all together in the end with metaphors and surrealism. As I said earlier, it sort of works, but it's a little hard to digest.

Updated On: 2/18/16 at 11:31 PM

^Yes! Rylance in particular gives a wonderfully comedic performance.

Noticed that most performances are already sold out...has anyone tried rush tickets? Does St.Ann's usually have rush seats available even for sold-out performances?