Why I walked out of IMPRESSIONISM

What a well-designed piece of garbage. Scott Pask, Catherine Zuber, Natasha Katz and Elaine McCarthy have all outdone themselves on this awful, uninvolving, unnecessary, unfortunate play.

Someone should tell Michael Jacobs that plays are supposed to ask a dramatic question, 'cause he obviously missed that class. What we have no are two snobby unaffected New Yorkers (one who talks with a funny accent) who work in an art gallery where the paintings come to life to tell their life stories.

Interesting premise - uninvolving script. Nobody cares. That's the problem. These aren't characters, they're 2-dimensional stereotypes of Chelsea snobby New York elite. Who the hell wants to see a play about that? You know they're gonna fall in love, but who cares? I saw no plot by the end of the first act (what a strange place for an intermission), so I scooted out the door.

Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen have absolutely no chemistry or, by the looks on their faces, no real desire to be there. Marsha Mason is wasted; Andre de Shields is play a role that's possibly more stereotyped and disgusting than the monkey that get's jerked off. The other ones can't act, especially that young woman, Margerita something. Good God.

Audience response was tepid at best, they were filming B-roll. The place was no doubt heavily comped with friends of the cast and production team (if I had one more person ask me if I'm here for 'Eliot' or 'a different code name,' I was ready to shoot myself for actually paying).

The highlight of the night, by far, was overhearing the conversation between Mike Nichols and John Guare as I was fleeing. Said Mike, his famous SH*T eating "I'm better than you" grin on his face, "Well, it plays exactly the same way as it reads."

Love the Prymate reference Yankeefan! It was worse than Prymate; at least that was amusing.

A truly dreadful night at the theater.

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How the bloody hell does something like this get produced when, oh, gee, I dunno, Lynn Nottage, Itamar Moses, Adam Rapp, Sarah Ruhl, Adam Bock, Eisa Davis, Gina Gionfriddo, Stephen Belber and so forth are still waiting for their big Broadway break just simply boggles my mind.

Well, to be fair, Stephen Belber has had a show produced on Broadway.

But point very much taken.

How many weeks is this supposed to run? I wonder if Irons and Allen will be able to sell it on name recognition alone.

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I posted my own thread on this, but while I, too, was disappointed in Impressionism--and you make good points--the second act was far better than the first. Maybe I'm crazy, but I can't bring myself to leave any production halfway through; it shouldn't be this way, but so many of them tend to redeem themselves in the second act. Maybe you should call your post, "My Review of the First Act of Impressionism"? Seriously, we tend not to like it on these boards when people bash things without seeing them; you're bashing the first half of it here, which is, I guess, about fifty percent better than doing it without seeing it at all!

Don't worry Yankeefan...it didn't get better, just easier to follow.

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Thank you for doing your duty to the world of broadway, however begrudgingly.

Duty, compulsion, tomato, tomahto.

I was a walkout on Monday night. God what a dreadful play. With this and 33 VARIATIONS, the question starts to be Why Good Actors Choose Such Crappy Plays?

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We see it tomorrow. We eat at Juniors afterwards so it won't be a total loss. The only shows we ever walked out on were Copenhagen & Stones In My Pocket.

This sounds like a train wreck akin to Moose Murders.

Mrs R is really thrilled to see it after reading this thread i can tell you. She is putting vodka in her water bottle. It can only help. What is the running time of this masterpiece?

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Updated On: 3/6/09 at 06:30 PM

"This sounds like a train wreck akin to Moose Murders."

It is nowhere near as close to as bad as MOOSE MURDERS was...

And neither Copenhagen nor Stones were plays to walk out on.

Hpmh!

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