Preview Thoughts on The Rose Tattoo

I'm very grateful to have gotten a free ticket to see Roundabout's revival of Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo.  I barely know the play (I'm embarrassed to admit) and I like Marisa Tomei, and I was afraid I might miss the show due to budgetary constraints.  Last week was the happy occasion, though I don't think I got as much out of the play as I expected...

For back story, I didn't have lunch and I didn't have dinner before seeing the show.  I went to a work event beforehand, then went with a beautiful work chum for a quick drink and bite before curtain.  I had a delicious cactus pear margarita and got totally SMASHED.  Gosh, I was so drunk, on one cocktail, that even the appetizer of prosciutto and melon didn't absorb all of the tequila.  I walked a bit haphazardly, got to the theater, sat down, sat back and thought...uh, can I even stay awake?!?!  What follows are my strange and ridiculous memories/impressions of the show.  This post will likely be pretty brief.

previously mentioned HUGE COCKTAIL

Throughout, I kept thinking, I AM SO DRUNK HOW DID THAT HAPPEN, and then I smelled pot (my seat was on the far right side of the house, so 43rd Street was not very far away) and I thought, OH MY GOD NOW I'M DRUNK AND HIGH I HATE THAT SMELL.

That sort of sums up my evening. I was too drunk and/or high to really register what was going on on stage. Marisa Tomei is playing a woman from Sicily and she frequently spoke Italian, which was beyond me at that moment.  My eight percent fluency in Italian (according to the Duolingo app from three years ago) vanished and I had no idea what anyone was saying.  I kept thinking one of the words she was using was a curse word, but, no, it was a character's name.  I did understand every time someone yelled about the strega (witch, in Italian), but they also kept yelling about a goat and I thought OH MY GOD THERE'S A GOAT UP THERE? (when I'm drunk, apparently I think in all caps).  I'm still not sure about the goat - I think it was a child running around as a goat?  Not sure.  The set projections were lovely, though the pink flamingos totally confused me (WHY ARE THERE FLAMINGOS? WERE THEY WITH THE GOAT?!) and I didn't understand the door situation - were they walking outside, into the parlor, where were they??; but during the night scenes, the waves looked extremely real to me.

Even in my drunken state, I was rather taken aback at the full-on comedy that was going on.  I sort of knew this play was more comic than most others by Williams, but there are parts that have been directed to be almost zany, which is ok, I guess.  Marisa Tomei has delightful comic timing, as does Emun Elliott, who plays her love interest.  Their scenes were very fun, and very filled with meaning, but I feel that my altered consciousness couldn't really handle the juxtapositions between the comedic and the Greek/tragic aspects (as depicted by the singing chorus of women in black who wandered the stage throughout, and the rather unhinged dance that Serafina does at the end of the first act).  That's on me, and my cocktail, but I was rather discombobulated throughout.  I suppose I should go back to see The Rose Tattoo again, to really take in the play everyone intended, instead of the crazy tequila/pot fever dream that I experienced.  The lesson I take from this should probably be to not go so long between cocktails...