Love and Information

This play is very unique and another thoroughly enjoyable installment of the New York Theatre Workshop.  Actually, less of a play more a series of thematic vignettes - long and short.  Broken down into 8 chapters, Caryl Churchill imbues each chapter with a theme that is then explored in several usually quick slices of life she presents.  Funny, sad, poignant, smart, coy, cunning, deceptive - you name it - she's got it.

The cast of 15 is usually, but not exclusively, paired in twos and is always introduced by a sound effect that relates to the scene.  Part of the formula for success is the bare white stage box and lighting effect at the scene changes that completely blacks out the view.  Very binary, very data-oriented, very sparse.  It focuses you on the topic of the scene.  There's a fair amount of thinking or processing that has to go on - that is - if you are trying to decode each scene and chapter.

By the time chapter 4 came along I started to figure out a pattern.  I just wish they would have displayed that theme when they flashed the chapter number up on the scrim.  It really would have made a quicker and stronger association to the content as it unfolded.  They could have at least printed it in the Playbill so we could have all reflected upon it afterwards.  And believe me, this one generated a lot of conversation afterwards.

With 57 individual vignettes over 2 hours, there was quite a bit to recall fondly.

Rapture, Blister, Burn

Eh.

Good Boys And True

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa penned a gem and 2econd Stage Theater with Scott Ellis at the directorial helm pulled this one off big time. Some have called this the American version of The History Boys. It certainly has the necessary ingredients: Religion, High School, Power, Wealth, Tradition, Family, and, of course, Scandal.

Set in the late 1980's - the decade of the birth of the power brokers and privileged - how far will Brandon go to keep his secret quiet? To what ends will he go to prove he's not gay? His mother and father are both the product of private schools, ivy league educated doctors. Their son, Brandon, a legacy at St Joseph's Prep, popular jock and captain of the football team seems to have it all and knows it. How far will he go in manipulating his parents, his teachers and his friends? Will he admit the truth? The whole truth?
 
And what about his mother? Has she actually forgotten the past? Has her drive for wealth and prestige affected the way she raises her son? Has it transformed her memory of what those younger years were like? Caused her to selectively forget certain things? Does she believe her son? Could it be him on the video tape? Why would he do this?
Perhaps today, we might question the extent of the angst, the deception. Sure, kids get into all sorts of things. Would we even be shocked by this tape today? Probably not. Sad, but true. But remember the time - the 1980's . In many ways, an entirely different outlook.
  
Brian J. Smith (Come Back Little Sheba) takes the helm as the seemingly perfect son, Brandon (he's 2 for 2 with the shirt off thing and I'm not complaining one bit.) and J. Smith-Cameron plays Mom. She needs to stop correcting herself when she stumbles over a line and just relax. The most relaxed moments were her most powerful and most emotional. An entire performance like that would seem a bit less like a reading and more like a Tony Award winning performance. And let's not forget a stand out performance by Christopher Abbott as Justin. I felt his pain, his struggle, and the emotional struggle he had over Brandon. I'm really hope to see more of him on stage.

The play was not perfect (just yet). That's what previews are for. There is a vague feeling of a Lifetime Movie, but it's written better, performed better, and developed much better than one of those. Stroll over to West 43rd and catch a performance of a play that may have a shot at a Broadway run.

Twentieth Century

QED

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QED_(play)