Theresa Rebeck's World Premier of her new play "Our House" in Denver

Thought I would just crate a thread to share this.

I just got back from seeing Ms Rebecks (Mauritius) latest play "Our House" which is world premiering here at the Denver Center Theater Company. It is in previews and this evening was the 3rd preview.

The play deals with how American broadcasting crossed the line when Julie Chen, while co-anchoring the Early News became the host of "Big Brother". The characters and the name of the reality show in the play are fictitious. But we know that it is Julie Chen and Les Moonves (Who were the springbord for the play) Another main character is Merv, who is addicted to a reality show called "Our House". And the part of Merv is brilliantly played by Rob Campbell. (He just did the show "Bad Jazz" in New York) He is wonderful.

It revolves around a semi popular anchor woman and what happens when she gets tapped to handle a real life situation in a house. I won't say too much more than that because there is a bit of a twist.

But the play delves into what we get from the news and how "real" what we are seeing is. And how really "unreal" reality shows are. The staging here at the DCTC's space theater was interesting but really didn't work. This show should actually, in my opinion and my theater partner's opinion, should be done on a 2 or 3 level stage. I can see how we were supposed to see how real life and reality shows blend together and you don't know what is real or not as the Network offices and the house were all one set.

The play runs a bit over 90 minutes with no intermission. If you live in Denver or come in for theater, I recommend this play. it needs a bit of tightening up and could do with a bit of rewriting but the script as it is, is very good. Not sure whether there are plans to move it to New York. But if so, I think it will have people talking about the subject matter of the play.

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Updated On: 1/13/08 at 01:30 AM

A bit of both. The DCTC's Space theater is in the round. There are 4 Vaunts (exits/entrances) to the stage. The set cut off three of them and the stage appeared to be raised in order to build a stairway down to the 4th one. So it was the only entrance/exit for the actors. It worked ok for the most part but in scenes where the news anchor was "on the air" she did it a few times in the staitwell once even while another character was walking up the stairs to the stage. It would have worked much better if her on air pieces were pre-taped and shown on the 8 large TV screens. There were 4 onstage and four mounted around the theater. That effect was good and would have worked. There would have been a bit less people clutter on the stage.

The script is wonderful but needs a bit of tweaking. There is a "message" and we really don't get the full message until about an hour into the show. Looking back, had the stage been split level, it may have helped the script a bit. The round set was an apartment and Network offices. After certain things happen during the show, it was a bit off putting to have the actors that were supposed to be in the offices walking through the Apartment. It is a nice set and kind of clever, but still didn't work for me. I wish they had done it in the Ricketson theater and done a split set. But it is new and I am sure will go through changes. It also didn't help that the actress playing the news anchor was not the greatest. The lines written for the character, if not delivered properly, can come off making the character look a bit dends. And unfortunately this actresses delivery did just that.

I am leaving out a certain part of the show. If anyone wants to know I will post it and put spoilers in the post title.

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Please reveal the spoilers. Just PM me. It's easier.

And I'll say this...from the way it sounds, it's the play that needs dramaturging, not the direction.

Not really. But it helps a bit to know what "Big Brother" is and who Julie Chen is. There are some digs at CNN. One line about Anderson Cooper had me on the floor. The show is definetly part dark comedy.

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Damn. I thought this was the Madness musical.

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