Ugh I hate to say that I did not love this. I am a really big admirer of Fasthorse’s general artistic and political mandate, as well as her previous collaborations with other Indigenous artists & theatermakers. Sadly, I found both this play and production extremely lacking.
I completely agree with the sentiment that this is a one-joke play. I think there is real satirical possibility in exploring the myopia and self-righteousness of white liberals (especially in a post-2020 discursive landscape), but I found the satire here to be rather toothless and the execution scattered. There is an intense redundancy to the well-intentioned, performative one-liners that we hear the characters (especially Finneran and Foley) cycle through again and again. In general, the characters all feel quite poorly drawn and lacking in specifity, as if they’re held together by repetitive lines of dialogue. Even within an elevated comedy that plays with archetype, there needs to be some richness/ dynamism of character to prod deeper. Having the characters essentially repeat surface level one-liners with little variation gets tiresome. Sadly, it also nullifies the overall political ambition of the play. I found the presentation of real-life classroom examples shared between each scene via video to be way more subversive than any of the traditional scenes.
Furthermore, as the play builds it just grows increasingly unfocused? Little moments of story development and character threads are dropped and then suddenly returned to and then dropped again. Additionally, Fasthorse loses focus in terms of what she’s skewering and approaches many elements of white liberalism in a rather scattered but still surface-level way. This all leads to the play building to a conclusion that feels simultaneously predictable but also somehow unearned. It never moves past it’s first layer of satirical exploration, but the randomness of the plotting still make some of the climatic moments feel contrived .
This is not to say there are not some funny moments and that the overall conceit is not interesting!! I just found the actual execution surface- level and lacking in any storytelling finesse or depth.
I will say whatever merit this play does have- I do not think it is well supported by Chavkin’s direction. I know it’s early in the preview process, so I will give her and her actors some grace. But as of now, there was a lot of dead air and rhythmic issues (that seem to be deadly to any comedy). The play’s structure is already more frustratingly sporadic than propulsive, and the choices didn’t help. The maintenance and building of energy is vital in a heightened comedy like this, and there are many plateaus. I also think Chavkin failed to find a unity of tone amongst the actors (who all were coming with different modalities).
I worship Katie Finneran, and am always in awe of her comedic prowess. She is a pro and is delivering a full bodied vocal and physical performance, but the limitations of the character rendered her work outsized and overly- exasperated. She had great moments and she is giving it her all but it doesn’t come close to her best work. I also adore D’Arcy Carden’s television work but feel her lack of theatrical experience (improv work aside) showed. She has such charm and a neat bag of comedic tricks but isn’t a skilled or dynamic enough theatrical performer to make her shoddily written “brainless actress” work. It felt like a collection of some inconsistent moments more than a coherent performance. And she stuck out in her moments with Finneran, esp in terms of theatrical vocal/physical chops.
I thought Foley faired pretty poorly with an even more grating and redundant character. And the great Chris Sullivan gave it his all but also felt failed by the lack of texture and specificity in the writing. It’s still a talented group but at this performance, I did not feel any meshing or harmony in their styles. There was also a lot of timing issues. I’m sure this will all improve as performances go on, but it was still disappointing to see.
I know this is all quite negative- but I will say that I am rooting for all those involved. I am really invested in work that is doing something both stylistically and politically bold and just found this underwhelming. But hope this Broadway production plus the play’s national popularity gives Fasthorse the opportunity to keep creating and experimenting.
Updated On: 3/31/23 at 02:08 AM
