Hmmm...this one was a bit of a head-scratcher. The general premise holds a lot of promise: Patti plays a prisoner up for a parole after having serviced 35 years of a sentence for some unknown crime. Winger plays her lawyer/parole officer type character who is about to retire. Patti claims to have undergone many changes. She's written a manuscript and she's found religion (Christianity) and wants to join a convent if she's released. She still won't give up her accomplice though, which would be the ultimate sign in Winger's eyes if she was truly a changed woman.
So, has Patti really changed or is it all an act? Will she get paroled/will Winger testify that she's a new woman?
The dialogue just doesn't zing enough and it really meanders around what's going on. It only ran about 75 minutes tonight, but it only felt like they repeated everything in my above two paragraphs for those 75 minutes.
Patti is good, but she's a little too committed to playing the innocent, doe-eyed convert. I know she has to either really be a changed person or at least convincingly faking it, but either way it would be good to see some fire underneath. I think she's on her way to getting there though.
Winger stumbled around on some lines here and there, but I guess the ping pong of Mamet takes some getting used to in public performance. Her role is less interesting that Patti's. She needs to play the listener and see if Patti will give up the accomplice or reveal that she's really not the new woman she claims to be. You assume she's going to have the big final monologue/moment, but it never really came.
As many of you know I love going to first previews, but this is one of the rare instances where I wish I was seeing a later performance. I think there will probably be some rewriting of lines (Mamet is writing and directing) and both performances will certainly get better as time goes on.
Compared to stuff like Dead Accounts at least The Anarchist had good intentions and tried to offer up something thought-provoking, etc. This is the type of play that you might walk out of the theater thinking, eh that wasn't really much, but then 4 days later still be discussing it with your friends.
I wish them the best in tightening and fixing things up.
Marie: Don't be in such a hurry about that pretty little chippy in Frisco.
Tony: Eh, she's a no chip!
Updated On: 11/13/12 at 10:27 PM
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