Permission, by Robert Askins (the guy who wrote Hand to God)

[Wee Thomas2]

Posted: 4/28/15 at 8:07pm

any buzz on this yet?  I see it's playing the Lortel, which is where Hand To God played last year. 

[dramamama611]

Posted: 4/28/15 at 10:04pm

Considering he said he's still WRITING it, what buzz could there be?  (In his Tony Nom comments)

[LightsOut90]

Posted: 4/28/15 at 10:06pm

First preview is tomorrow night.

[BroadwayGuy12]

Posted: 4/28/15 at 10:06pm

It starts performances tomorrow at the Lortel, produced by MCC and directed by Alex Timbers.

http://www.mcctheater.org/shows/14-15_season/permission/index.html

ETA: LightsOut beat me to it

Updated On: 4/28/15 at 10:06 PM

[dramamama611]

Posted: 4/28/15 at 10:42pm

I had no idea....was simply going off his own words in his reaction to the Tony nom.

[AnarchyinthePreK]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 1:02am

I can't find that quote but he has 12 plays under his belt. Perhaps he has moved on to the next.

If anyone does see Permission please share your thoughts - I am intrigued. It has not opened and was already extended a week so tickets must be selling.

[Wee Thomas2]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 7:22am

Looking forward to feedback.  We have one slot left for Memorial Day weekend, and it's Sunday night, which is always hard to fill.  Looks like it's this or the Rajiv Joseph show.

[MorningGlow2]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 11:06pm

Saw this tonight, opening performance - and it showed :) Still very rough around the edges not just in it's execution, but the book, too. Started off slow and while it did pick up near the end of Act I and through Act II, it ended up all over the place (and not necessarily in a satisfying sort of way). I didn't leave the theater with that sense of satisfaction I get from having watched a good story.

Cast is great. They obviously weren't completely in their roles being day 1, but I bought in to their characters. I can see them getting better with each performance, so long as the entire show gets tightened up. There were some genuinely good laughs throughout and hopefully they harness this to better their roles.

Set worked very much like Hand to God (on Broadway) where you have 2 halves of the stage alternating back and forth - just done at a much smaller scale with lower budget. Found some of the transitions disturbing as they fumbled behind the curtains, but hey, it's day 1.

All this said, I did enjoy the show for what it was. It's definitely still a work in progress, but there seems to be something there at the end of it all and hopefully by chiseling away at it, they find that "meaning" I'm looking for.

[LightsOut90]

Posted: 4/29/15 at 11:25pm

to be fair before Hand To God got to MCC it had already had two full runs at EST so i can see this show getting it together before opening (seeing it in like 5 weeks, knew it was a fresh piece so decided to let them work out the kinks before seeing it) I have faith in askins, i have faith. 

[Wee Thomas2]

Posted: 4/30/15 at 9:01am

Thanks for the reviews!

[GreasedLightning]

Posted: 5/2/15 at 6:17pm

Anyone else catch this?

[Play Esq.]

Posted: 5/2/15 at 9:39pm

Morning: can you talk more about the show itself?

[Play Esq.]

Posted: 5/7/15 at 12:14pm

Bump...anyone see it recently?  Considering going this weekend.

[Sauja]

Posted: 5/7/15 at 2:28pm

I just saw it, and it's...fine. Strong cast that really commits, very amusing set-up, some fun writing. It just doesn't really come together. First, the pacing needs to be tighter. It's an hour and 50 minutes including intermission, and it feels like it could be a really strong 80 minute one act. There are tons of kinks to work out. The scene transitions are awkward at best (there's really just too much set for such a small show), and because of that, the end of each act was met with complete silence as the audience couldn't figure out if it was over or if some other lumbering piece of scenery would come sliding in.

 

As promising as the script is, it needs work. Characters act in ways that seem contradictory, other points are telegraphed from so far out that tension doesn't build enough... Askins has a ton of talent (I adored Hand to God). This just feels like it needed more development time to get where it needed to be. I'm not sure if it was rushed to production to capitalize on Hand to God being on Broadway. And I'm not sure if just needed a director who would have provided more guidance during development. Hopefully it will keep getting stronger as previews go on because there really is a lot of promise there.

 

As i said, the whole cast is strong with particularly great work from Elizabeth Reaser and Nicole Lowrance. But even looking at their two performances, one gets a sense of the problems with the show. Reaser is a daffy delight playing the show deliciously over the top. Lowrance's performance is just as committed and hilarious, but in a much more grounded, realistic way. One senses that again, a stronger directorial hand was needed to get everyone on the same page.

 

So...worth seeing? Sure. It's flawed, but it provides entertainment. The real frustration is just from the fact that you feel like it has the ability to be much better than it already is.

[LightsOut90]

Posted: 5/7/15 at 3:25pm

is this the first straight play that Alex Timbers has directed in new york?

[cardamon]

Posted: 5/7/15 at 3:43pm

LightsOut90, Timbers directed the play "The Language of Trees" at the Roundabout in 2008.

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 5/7/15 at 4:40pm

Peter and the Starcatcher isn't a musical either.

[Kad]

Posted: 5/7/15 at 4:41pm

Timbers also directed Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's boom at Ars Nova, way back in 2008, as well as the Broadway engagement of Pee-Wee's Playhouse a few years ago.

Updated On: 5/7/15 at 04:41 PM

[theatregoer3]

Posted: 5/8/15 at 6:09am

Sauna,

 

i saw saw this earlier this week and your review is spot on. I couldn't have said it better myself.

[newintown]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 9:17am

I enjoyed this play very much; whereas many playwrights seem to have difficulty engineering a simple two-character argument, Askins has a talent for effortlessly creating multi-character pandemonium that I find delightful.

There are things about the play I might think could improve - the women are all hilarious, but they have an easier row to hoe than the men do, pursuing their needs maniacally as they do. The men have a more difficult time with their timidity and hesitation.

And although i know the playwright is a Texan, I think that, to new Yorkers, a Southern accent makes a character somewhat dismissable as a hillbilly. I could see this play working perhaps a bit better set in an anonymous Midwestern location.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 5/11/15 at 8:21pm

How is the direction? Any of the usual Timbers flare?

[newintown]

Posted: 5/12/15 at 8:56am

"Timbers flare?" I admit I don't know what that might be, even having seen a good deal of his work.

This one is directed as a straightforward play, no gimmicks, no "flare." The actors don't bump into the set or each other, so the staging is fine. The excellent performances I credit to the actors, not the director.

The set does what it needs to, but is a bit lumbering in that space.

[Play Esq.]

Posted: 5/12/15 at 9:37am

Rippedman: 

I've seen quite  a bit of his work (from BBAJ, Rocky, Love's Labour's Lost, PATSC, Here Lies Love...my personal favorite).  This show lacks a lot of the visual spectacle of the aforementioned shows, but there are a few moments of Timbers flare (the man sure likes his moving set pieces).  Otherwise, the play is rather straight forward, in more was than one.

I saw it this weekend and found it all to be rather lackluster.  But for the performances, I certainly would have walked out during intermission.  This is certainly a production where the performances elevate the material.  

Askins attempts to dive into a very unique and niche world within the Christian community (Christian Domestic Discipline).  I had never heard of this community prior to this play, and was enticed by this concept.  However, Askins doesn't do a very good job depicting that world and, though he certainly attempts to skewer that community, many CDD jokes fall flat and grow repetitive fairly quickly.  

I found Hand to God to be a enlightening rebuke of faith: this, on the other hand, felt like a light parody of a group of individuals who claim to have faith.  It's short on substance and often tested my attention span.

[BroadwayLuv2]

Posted: 5/13/15 at 8:47am

Anyone else see this?  Thoughts?  I'm on the fence about going.

[ClydeBarrow]

Posted: 5/23/15 at 1:34pm

I had very low expectations going into this because I haaaaated HAND TO GOD but I thought this play was pretty good. I guess I get that Askins is trying to carve out a niche for himself by writing plays about religion set in Texas but neither element was needed here. It could have been a straightforward play about couples that use spanking as discipline in their relationship and it turns sexual in nature.

The first act didn't really do much for me but the second faired much better. Once the relationships developed to different levels I found the writing much more enjoyable and funny. 

All of the actors are pretty much up to snuff but I found Nicole Lowrance to be the best of the bunch. She didn't really have much to do in the first act but she really shone through in the second and also had some of the best one-liners.

The set was my main issue. When you walk in there is a tiny living room set off to the left of the stage with a black curtain on the other side. This is done because there are smaller sets (kitchen, a school office, exterior of the house) that rotate throughout the show but I found it to be super distracting. Plus it made the "larger" set seem very claustrophobic. I think one of my main issues with MCC is that they try to do too much with their sets on such a small scale (I'm looking at you, THE VILLAGE BIKE). There was also a lot of backstage noise while these pieces were being changed.

I don't know if I would recommend this to everyone because I had an opposite opinion from most regarding HTG but I think it's enjoyable enough. One recommendation for seating would be to not sit too far over house right because I think you miss some details of the smaller sets.