Flashing back yet again!

Happy Friday!  I can't believe this was eight years ago - and after all my talk about loving this playwright's work, I can't believe I haven't gotten tickets to his latest series of plays at the Public.  I need to work on that...  Oh, and to the right is yet another photo of a spot I hope to see in November.  I'm thinking of posting a photo every week, just for fun.




7/29/2008:  Finally!  Can you believe I haven’t seen a show in nearly two months?!  I can’t.  So the Golden Age of MissTari Reviews is probably over.  Now you’ll have time for your regular lives since you won’t have my huge and rambling reviews to read on a steady basis.  Oh well.

A handsome friend and I went to the revival of Richard Nelson’s Some Americans Abroad last night at Second Stage.  I saw the original off-Broadway and Broadway productions of the play at Lincoln Center when I first moved to New York—I remember really enjoying the play and having a great time.  I actually saw it three times.  Though, when my handsome friend asked me for recollections of the original production, I had to admit I couldn’t remember a thing!  I sort of had a recollection that Bob Balaban and Frances Conroy were in it, but other than that—nothing.  So does that say something about the play?  Or me?  I’m not sure.

I enjoyed myself again last night, but I’m thinking part of my original enjoyment was due to the fact that I was teaching at the time (and the characters in the play are mainly academics).  Now that I’m so far away from that part of my life, it didn’t feel as immediate.  I still chuckled knowingly, but didn’t feel as if this production of this play was telling me anything new or fresh.  As always, Nelson’s dialogue is clever and quick, but, in this instance, it didn’t really seem to serve a purpose. It wasn’t to enlighten anything about the play.  At least, I don’t think it did.  These pretentious Americans, who hate pretentious Americans, have great conversations and get into interesting situations, but they don’t really say anything about anything.  Although, now that I think about it, that could be the point.  The pretentious Americans, who talk and talk and talk about how smart they are, don’t really say anything.  It IS an interesting dichotomy, but I don’t think the play is well-served by this production.

photo credit: Joan Marcus

The actors are ok, for the most part, though I didn’t love the wife of the professor who fears for his job.  But I mainly didn’t love her hairdo, which apparently severely impacted my enjoyment of her characterization.  ;)     I liked Tom Cavenaugh well enough, though a couple of times I wanted to shout at him “think and act at the same time!!” There were a lot of pauses for thinking, since they were playing academics, you know.  They think a lot.  Well, speed up the thinking!  Halley Feiffer as the young former student who now lives in London was quite a hoot, though.  I’m going to keep my eye on what she does next. And I always enjoy Enid Graham.  

My handsome friend hit the nail on the head, I think, when we were discussing the production afterwards.  The problem really lies with the director, who didn’t really direct the piece to have any momentum or forward motion.  All of the scenes just sort of lie there, then there’s a blackout, then the actors move the new set pieces off/on stage. Every scene, same thing.  There didn’t really seem to be any sense of urgency anywhere, so I really fault the pacing and the direction.  I did like the concept of leaving all of the set pieces, once they were used, upstage.  The idea of these ugly Americans leaving pieces of themselves everywhere they went was clever, but that’s about the only directorial choice I did enjoy. 

It’s an interesting dilemma—I’m now forever predisposed to enjoy Richard Nelson’s plays because I loved the original production of Some Americans Abroad so much!  I've probably seen ten or so of his plays since.  But now I’ve seen another production of that first play and I didn’t love it as much.  Will I be tougher on him in the future?  Probably not. I do look forward to what he writes next.  I like his use of dialogue and, generally, what he has to say.   So I guess I would say that if you get a discount, I’d recommend your seeing this production.  It’s definitely not the best use of this play, but it’s entertaining enough.  And I always think Nelson is worthwhile.

I’m seeing A.R. Gurney’s new play next week (lucked into a free ticket), but after that, who knows?!  Perhaps I should get a second job to pay for theater tickets!  Something to think about, I guess…