**After seeing Mamet's The Anarchist
, and mentioning that a 72-minute play didn't necessarily indicate a too-short evening, I went back and looked at my old review of Caryl Churchill's Drunk Enough to Say I Love You
, which was presented at the Public Theater in 2008. From the archives, here's that review:
I
saw the new Caryl Churchill play at the Public last night. Sat two rows
behind Ben Brantley, so I guess the reviews will come out soon. On the
subject of my seat neighbors, which I guess could be a continuing feature in my
reviews: to my left was a young kid who knows EVERYTHING about theater (in his
mind) and to my right was a guy (who I discovered after the show is an agent) who had some serious issues with invading my personal
space. I spent the evening trying to take up the least amount of space
possible and avoiding my arm rest. And the elderly couple behind me
loudly opened their big bag of candy throughout the entire play.
Of
course, that isn’t very long. The play is only about 45 minutes, start to
finish. While I have some problems with the idea of charging full price
for a 45-minute play, I do have to admit I feel like I had a full evening of
theater of ideas. The candy couple behind me, however, did not.
After the curtain call, they stood up, yelled and demanded their money back.
I
can definitely understand that point of view. This is a polarizing piece
which can certainly be viewed as anti-American. We have two actors in a
fumbling, dysfunctional love affair, serving as a metaphor about the
relationship between America
and England.
This was both fascinating and a cliché to me. Churchill’s use of language
was also both fascinating and a cliché. The use of unfinished sentences,
strung back to back, has been done before, yet it works in this context.
Both of them are saying, and NOT saying, exactly what they mean. And they
are saying some horrible things. Really charged stuff about politics and
policies, America’s view of
their place in the world, and England’s
compliance with it.
Samuel
West (who I adore—you may remember him from the film Howard’s End) plays the Brit and is
fabulous. You see him with all his lovestruck naivte, yet he struggles
with the seeming ruthlessness of the object of his desire. Scott Cohen,
who I normally like as an actor, isn’t quite right as the American (or America, as it
were). I don’t think he’s forceful or charismatic enough to really pull
off keeping this other guy (or England)
in thrall. And he has a bad habit of ending his energy at the end of his
lines, as if he’s done acting now, your turn, thank you. Not a good thing when doing
a play heavy in sentences stopping mid-thought in ellipses…
The
staging was interesting—the actors sat on a couch seemingly floating in
blackness and after each scene change, the couch was a little bit higher.
The set was surrounded by a gold frame filled with lights, and there was
distinctive music used during the scene changes. I don’t quite understand
the meaning behind the use of the minimal props (actually the disposal of the
props), but they added a touch of whimsy to a potentially heavy play. I’d
say the director did a good job of keeping a very talky play moving and
visually interesting. It also helps, of course, to use two extremely handsome
actors. J
I
readily admit that this will not be everyone’s cup of tea. I didn’t
really think it would be mine—at one point, I was thinking “yeah, yeah, yeah,
America’s a bully, tell me something I don’t know,” but a few minutes later,
all of a sudden, I found myself crying. So something struck me and moved
me. And heaven knows I’ve been thinking about this play ever since I saw
it, so there’s something to be said for that, too. I’ll be really
interested in hearing what other people have to say about it.
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