Reasons to See REASONS TO BE PRETTY (or, How It Could Have Won The Tony)

[EugLoven]

Posted: 6/11/09 at 1:02am

Note: I apologize, my apostrophe button on my keyboard is broken

Saw REASONS TO BE PRETTY on Broadway tonight. This play MUST be seen before it closes Sunday June 14. If you are a New Yorker or a theatre-goer in-town this weekend, grab a ticket now!

REASONS TO BE PRETTY is just phenomenal. Since the announcement of its closing, the Lyceum is PACKED. And best-yet, its packed with NEW YORK theatre-goers (definitely a different breed)... who are emotionally and mentally charged, intellectual (and for tonight at least, very good-looking).

Nearly both sides of the orchestra were rush-ticket buyers ($26.50) and the show-poster is on liquidation-sale for $3 in the lobby!

REASONS deals with 4 people that are so precisely acted, so perfectly scripted and so invigoratingly natural on-stage together, its like peering into real life (as cliche as it sounds). The relationships illustrated by LaBute and expertly portrayed by these 4 actors are so defined and alive! This play is art. So engaging and rewarding. And creates some of the most-fun audience responses! But even more, its not trying to be anything else. It is a play about 4 people in some really effed-up situations. But true and succinct and totally engaging.

REASONS could have won the Tony for Best Play. Really, each play in that category was DESERVING of the nomination! REASONS could have taken it home... if it had 4 movie-stars instead of 4 hard-working legit New York City actors.

This is NOT a dig on GOD OF CARNAGE. That play rocks and deserved its 3 Tonys, most definitely.

Rather, this is a soap-box commentary on the fickleness of award-ceremonies, or... the power of ticket-sales and pandering to tourists.

Neil LaBute is just as foreign a playwright to tourists as Yasmina Reza. These are two TERRIFIC writers who have time and again proven that when their pens hit the page, modern theatre glistens and ignites!

How REASONS TO BE PRETTY suffered in grosses would be the same way GOD OF CARNAGE would have suffered if its cast featured, say, Elizabeth Marvel and Norbert Leo Butz (instead of Hope Davis and Jeff Daniels). It begs the question, if celebrities helmed LaButes piece (say, Michelle Williams in the Piper Perabo role), would it have succeeded?.... Famous-faces in REASONS certainly would have gone completely against the whole theme of his play, however.

Im not looking for an argument and not even sure I know what Im saying, but I do know that it begs a question. When an American playwright writes a truly American play with 4 New York City actors, versus a French playwright writing an Americanesque play with 4 movie-stars (each amazingly powerful pieces in their own rite), what determines success and award-ability?

Updated On: 6/11/09 at 01:02 AM

[jeniferrenepatricia]

Posted: 6/11/09 at 1:09am

I agree 100%. I saw this play 3 times, and it was fabulous! So sad that this is the last weekend.

[thespian geek]

Posted: 6/11/09 at 1:42am

While I'm sad that it's closing, I hope the script becomes available soon to be done regionally. The director of a local theatre company that I've done shows for wants to do FAT PIG next season and just [i]reading[/i] that script hit me hard. So I'm really wanting to read and see REASONS TO BE PRETTY. Neil is a wonderful playwright and very, very honest in his work.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 6/11/09 at 1:51am

I'm hoping to catch it at some point in the next few days before it closes.

It really was the best new play to open on Broadway this season.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 6/11/09 at 7:19am

As I said, if this play had the original cast of THE SHAPE OF THINGS, Rudd, Weisz, Mol, Weller, it would have succeeded.

But I give the producers and Terry Kinney and Neil credit for not going that route.

[shh282]

Posted: 6/11/09 at 7:57am

I just finished reading the play, and now I 'm really sad I didn't get to see it before I left school :[.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 6/11/09 at 9:38am

I don't feel similarly at all. I do not feel REASONS is as well-written, as sophisticated, or as well-executed as GOD OF CARNAGE. If you feel you need big names to get people to see a play, then chances are it isn't as well-written as you are stating. REASONS was very provocative but I think it is the latest in a long line of LaBute re-treads: unhappy people acting out on each other. I think it was never meant for Broadway to begin with, which is why it never caught on. It sold out its run off-Broadway and I think it will have successful runs all over the country and the world, but it was not ready for Broadway.

If there was something electric about it, people would be talking about and they would be showing up, the way they have been for GOD. I just dont think REASONS ever had the goods to begin with.

[BroadwayGuy12]

Posted: 6/11/09 at 10:33am

Ugh! I was going to see this later this month, but then they posted their closing notice and I can't get into the city this weekend. Seeing this good review makes me even more upset that I'm missing it!

Thanks for sharing, though. I'm sure I'll be able to see a production (regional or community) sometime in the future. I just hope it's sooner rather than later.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 6/11/09 at 11:24am

It actually will probably look better and fare better in regional theatres.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 6/11/09 at 1:06pm

I disagree.

I feel like GOD OF CARNAGE has a stronger troupe of performers who are also given a lot of funny material to work with and who execute it all very well but I feel like REASONS is much better written than GOD OF CARNAGE which was clearly elevated to another level because of the performances in it.