(Re)Frozen and Al Dente

I had seen Frozen maybe three weeks ago. The night we went, Swoozie Kurtz was out and her understudy, Pippa Pearthree, played the mother of the slain child. I've never been that enamored with Kurtz, so the substitution was fine with me. I thought the play was terrific.

I had the opportunity to see it again last night, this time with
Swoozie. I found myself actually responding more to her than I had to Pearthree. Swoozie played the role with an edge of rawness. She managed to convey the sense that no matter how well she seemed to be coping in the decades following the murder of her daughter, a vein of suppressed hysteria was never far below the surface. She would draw close to exposing it at times, but never quite did. It was a complex and brilliant portrayal. The understudy I had seen the first time, gave a very good performance, but she had more of an air of overwhelming sadness about her. I identified more with Kurtz.

Bryan O'Byrne, as the killer, is just awesome. (Guess maybe that's why he won the Tony, huh?) Our seats tonight were on the opposite side of the stage and I was able to see some subtleties of his performance that I missed the first time. He captured so many layers of the troubled serial killer. His use of body language in his physical performance is a wonder.

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And in the you never know department, I was chatting with the
gentleman seated to may left at intermission and we came to discover that we both post on this site. I was honored, and frankly, speechless, to find myself talking one-on-one with our very own Al Dente.

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You have all the luck, iflitifloat. You get to meet Al Dente at Frozen, and who do I see when I go? An English teacher from my high school. I don't dislike her or anything, but meeting teachers outside of school (especially once you've graduated) is always an awkward thing.

Excuse me, but was I just referred to, however obliquely, as a 'fruitcake'???? Nice.

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Oh, well...as long as its *quality* fruitcake...

Jeesh.

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O.k. Iflit, how about Eggnog?

A non-hippie fruitcake tho. So that's good, right? Which one of you squealed the loudest when you revealed each other's screen names?

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That is totally cosmic man.

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Not squealing exactly...maybe a mild yelp of excitement.

Dignity. Isn't that the gay Catholic organization? Who here is a gay Catholic?

(Kidding. Please don't answer that!)

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This is a cool meeting-up story

I loved FROZEN....its so intense. Great perfs

I agree.

I wonder if the subject matter kept people away. To be honest, it took me a long time to make myself go. As a parent, I can't image how one survives something like the murder of a child. I'm not a particularly paranoid person, and I don't focus on the murder and mayhem stories on the nightly news, but every time there is a child abduction story...at least for a second that thought flashes through my consciousness. Oddly enough, the mother in the play addresses that very issue when at the very end of the play she says, "Nothing is unbearable". And it is a testament to the quality of both the play and the acting, that I believe her.

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You're right about that Plum. There is no valid reason to "avoid" Caroline... The material in Frozen is very difficult to digest but it's important to witness.