Posted: 9/30/17 at 12:12am
I thought there was a thread for this, but I can’t seem to find it.
After the grand revival of Time and the Conways, Roundabout returns to form, with 100 slow, pointless, painful minutes. I can’t recall the last time I looked at my watch so many times.
I have not seen any of Anna Ziegler's other work, but, if this is representative, I don’t want to. Her writing is simply atrocious. Her dialogue is unreal and inorganic. I kept expecting the playwright to pop up at the back of the stage to shout "yep, I wrote that."
From what I gather, the play, set during a semi-final match at the US Open tennis championship, is a metaphor for tennis as life, but comes across as another example of 'tell-don't-show' theater.
For me, I'm sick of authors wasting my time with nothing but exposition, thinking they've written a great and profound play. If I want exposition, I’ll read a novel. I wish theaters were more discerning before mounting productions of this tedium.
There’s no point in spoilers because there’s nothing to spoil. The two main characters spend almost the entire play narrating, telling & addressing the audience. There are brief moments of 'showing' but they're too few and far between to make any impact. Even when the two men are playing tennis, their dialogue is still telling us what’s going on.
The set is simple but effective. The lighting is fine. The actors are average and fine, but they aren't given much to work with, so when the female Russian character reminded us of Natasha from Rocky & Bullwinkle, it's not surprising, but, like the rest of this dreadful, dull mess, it’s frustrating.
I hated every minute of this and would have left if there had been an intermission.
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