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

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

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

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.

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.

Thanks for the reviews!

Morning: can you talk more about the show itself?

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

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

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.

"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.

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