Posterity

Perhaps the only downside to writing and directing a play is that you don't get enough valuable feedback.  When Doug Wright penned this gem, he should have turned the direction over to someone else - to get that independent perspective - to achieve even greater greatness.  Instead what we ended up with is a play that is a bit too long and a bit over-played by the actors.  Indeed it has a great story - two artists engaged in a debate over  their legacy, what will they be remembered for.  In the case of one - art took precedence over family.  In the other, poverty, obscurity and principles seem to rule the day over actually doing work and getting paid.

Despite this - we find these two artists engaged in a battle of wills.  Who will succeed?  What will happen in the end?  I will give away nothing except to say that both actors give astonishingly brilliant performances.  It's a based on real people and real art so it's both educational and entertaining at the same time.

The ever-dashing Hamish Linklater (Gustav Vigeland) plays the young budding sculptor and the great John Noble (Henrik Ibsen) plays the world famous literary genius with aplomb.

The language in this play is smart.  Very smart.  Very intellectual.  Lofty, some might say.  The level of language was maintained throughout, but the effect was occasional drift and loss of content as you were trying to figure out what they were saying/meaning.  If nothing else, one could simply say this is a smart man's play.  If you're not, maybe think twice before going but at the prices at the Atlantic, think hard because seeing actors this fine for such a price is well worth it.

The Substance of Fire

Jon Robin Baitz' story is re-told at Second Stage this spring.  I didn't know at the time but it was previously a movie in 1996 with a great cast (Sarah Jessica Parker, Ron Rifkin, Timothy Hutton, Tony Goldwyn, Dick Latessa and Eric Bogosian) and an original play before that in 1991 at Playwrights Horizons - staring both Rifkin and Parker among originals too.

Knowing this now, I have to imagine it was a fairly decent original run for award winning director Daniel Sullivan.  This production, however, left me a bit dazed and confused.  Act I in which the guns are drawn and tensions mount is tight, crisp, and in this production, well acted and packed a punch.  I was hooked.

However, perhaps the downfall of the original production (I don't know) was also the meandering and lackluster, and frankly bizarre act II.  It certainly was here.  Act II introduces a new character and quite honestly a diversion and story line that came out of left field.   So different was act II from act I that I felt it was an entirely different play.  Two of the characters (siblings) from act I simply disappeared and we are only tacitly filled in on the remaining sibling's status.  The 3 siblings - Halley Feiffer (Sarah), Daniel Eric Gold (Martin), Carter Hudson (Aaron) all deserve kudos as does their father Isaac - John Noble.

In the end - it was tremendous disappointment and after such a great act I, it was that much more deflating.  The cast was magnificent and I enjoyed them all.  However, I did think that Charlayne Woodard (Marge Hackett) overplayed the part (or at least she may have been directed to).

A tough topic - Holocaust survivor coming to grips with the demise of his company as his family struggles to keep things going.  I'm still not sure if in the end he was crazy or not.

I presume Mr. Baitz leaves that up to us to judge.