#1
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?
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
