Not really. I just like to write the words wacky hijinks. The play is a pretty standard dysfunctional family comedy, although the family in this case is an upper-middle-class African-American family. So we do have some racial and political issues thrown into the mix. I enjoyed a lot of the dialogue and scenework, but I don’t really think this play is anything special. It’s WAY too long, for one thing. Not only is the script overwritten with entirely too many secrets/revelations and confrontations (especially when the secrets/revelations were telegraphed from the opening scene), plus it has at least three ‘final scenes,’ and, hello, the most important plot point is conveyed offstage and OVER THE PHONE, but the physical production is also overlong, due to the length of the musical interludes. I guess when Alicia Keys is the producer and writes the score, you have to present ALL her music, but the scene changes were much too long to accommodate her music, and the music wasn’t all that appropriate to the play, in my opinion. PLUS, and this really worked my last nerve, for some reason, during the musical scene changes, if the actors were on stage, instead of just sitting there quietly waiting for the music to stop and the scene to start, the actors would do some weird verbal noises, like “mmmmm hmmmmm” or grunts or squeals or stuff. It was so odd. As if they wanted to make sure we knew they weren’t ‘frozen’ on stage and were still acting even though they weren’t talking. I just found it so…dumb.
The women come off much better, acting- and character-wise in the show than do the men. The gents were generally given stilted dialogue and they presented it, um, stiltedly. The gals, most especially Condola Rashad, are quite good, but their characters are also more fleshed out. I think part of the problem of the play is that it can’t really decide whose story it is, so everyone gets their own story, which contributes to the overlong quality and the diffusiveness of the whole evening. Though, I will say, the final scene between Condola Rashad and Ruben Santiago-Hudson was terrific and I was moved. But it was a long slog to actually get there. Director Kenny Leon did no one any favors – even as traffic cop, he wasn’t very imaginative. All in all, Condola Rashad is giving a performance that’s well worth seeing, but I find it hard to recommend Stick Fly as a play. She actually has one line that sort of evokes how I feel about the play, “So, you’re mad and I’m supposed to feel sorry for you because girls were mean to you…AT HARVARD??!!” That’s kinda how I felt about the play. Why should I care? And I know I’m in the minority amongst my friends, several of whom have really enjoyed it. And the rest of the audience seemed to really enjoy it too, so...ah well.
Moving on. I can’t believe Mamma Mia has been running for ten years and I’ve never seen it! Well, actually, I can’t believe it’s been running for ten years. The end. lol But, anyway, my friend got rush tickets last night and invited me to join him. We had a lot of fun!
The second act of the show is WAY better than the first, I think. The first act seems long, with a lot of exposition that the actors didn’t seem to have much interest in, therefore, neither did the audience. This audience seemed especially rude, with texting and talking throughout. I kept getting quite annoyed. For the first act, we were behind people with the largest heads EVER, and they kept leaning forward, then putting their arms around each other, or talking to each other. It was so frustrating. So we moved for the second act, to much more central seats with a better view (although the gal in front of me who texted throughout the second act was thisclose to being beheaded by me via an airborne Ricola). I had to toss out a “SHUSH” towards the end of the evening as well. It was probably a good idea that we moved, though, not only to be able to see, but to get away from the well-meaning but entirely too chatty gals from Alabama sitting next to me, one of whom played Lily St Regis in Annie, one of whom is on diuretics for her high blood pressure, and both of whom had seen Wicked earlier in the week and definitely thought I should go see it. Wow. That’s lots of information. J
But, all in all, we did have a grand time. Lisa Brescia is terrific as Donna, the mom, and the gals playing her friends (Judy McLane and Jennifer Perry) were also quite good. I wasn’t as thrilled with the prospective dads, but they grew on me. I didn’t love the gal playing the daughter, Sophie—I thought her voice was kind of pretty but too thin, and her acting wasn’t anything special, though she certainly was adorable. And the boy playing her fiancé? We had no idea why he was in the show until he did a song shirtless. We literally whispered to each other, “aha, THAT’S why he was cast.” My goodness, that boy has quite a naked torso. Singing and acting? Not so much.
I always forget how much I love me some Abba songs, even Abba songs that are oddly shoehorned into a plot (I found the daughter singing “Name of the Game” to one of her prospective dads kinda icky—clearly, listening closely to the lyrics doesn’t help your enjoyment of the piece). The final curtain call is actually worth the price of a rush ticket. It’s tons of fun, and if that much fun had been part of the first act, I would think Mamma Mia is a genius piece of theater. J
Irrational rant time: so, it came out this week that a host on E! tv is having a double mastectomy. She had announced her breast cancer earlier this year, and that she decided to have a lumpectomy and radiation, but she recently discovered that her margins weren't clear so she made the decision to have the double mastectomy. OK. I know it's perfectly within her rights to make all this public. She's a public figure, she has a reality show in addition to her duties on E! News, so it makes sense to announce things to avoid rumor and innuendo. But something about her whole spiel makes me incredibly uncomfortable. And irritated. Intellectually, yes, perhaps by coming forward, more women will get tested. And women may be less afraid after hearing about someone they watch on television having the same procedure. But the publicness of it. The "oh, she's so brave" aspects. The cover story on People magazine that says "I'm fighting for my life." It's putting my teeth on edge and I don't know quite why. Maybe I'm ticked that she's making me re-think all of my stuff of the past year. Remembering hearing my pathology report, struggling with the decisions, reliving the surgery and then the fire. I suppose I could be resenting her for that. But inviting all this...attention. It just seems so wrong. Health is such a private matter. Choosing who you tell is one thing. Having your own segments on an entertainment news channel and introducing your friends who come on and talk about how brave you are, then you say 'thank you' in the studio. It just really rubs me the wrong way. And then I feel guilty about feeling annoyed. Sigh.
I have a couple of blogs by breast cancer survivors that I read (they're not as bad as the discussion boards, which I really have to stop reading, but sometimes I just can't help myself, and I get so depressed afterwards), and they are applauding this tv gal's decision to go through all this stuff publicly. I wish I could put my finger on why I disagree. Perhaps it's simply that I'm mad about the bursting of my 'denial' bubble...
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