Important Hats of the Twentieth Century

My reaction after about 10-15 minutes of bewilderment in Manhattan Theatre Club's Stage II at NY City Center was one of utter confoundment (if that's a word).  What on earth possessed MTC to choose this play to produce?  It appears to have been written by someone with the mind of a 13 year  old.  Why was I being forced to pay to watch this crap?

Let me be clear here - the actors were magnificent at the character acting contained throughout- not the least of which was the uber adorable and talented Carson Elrod (Sam Greedy) as an over the top fashion designer.  The other actors all played multiple characters - including a single woman who played all the female parts.

The trouble here isn't the lighting (it was great), sound (it was great)  or fairly good direction and blocking (very creative use of the stage) on a small stage with limited scenery (Moritz von Steulpnagel).  It's that the play itself by Nick Jones is a poor rip off of Back to the Future.  Its humor is immature, dare I say childish.  And the story goes on and on like a Saturday cartoon and really ends up nowhere.  It's a silly premise that contains a hairy gorilla and never really gets much resolution - what ever happened to the sweatshirts/track pants that got introduced before their time?  Finally, both the show's marketing and hype about the play gets you to believe it is about actual HATS.  While it is about ONE HAT (that's not really a hat in the way you would think), it's really more about fashion and still time travel in general than hats.

Don't waste your time on this silly play that never should have made it to a stage - unless of course you want to travel back in time to one of your high school productions.  Better the glowing orbs that nobody seems to mind blow it up in the river.

The Country Girl

A lesser known work by Clifford Odets. A play (1950) staring Uta Hagen, made into a popular movie (1955) staring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, and William Holden, this 3rd revival is something just short of average.

Despite the star power - Morgan Freeman, Frances McDormand, and Peter Gallagher - the play lacks chemistry and comes across as rather flat. I never felt much attraction between Gallagher and McDormand - and Freeman always seemed too pleasant and happy - - i am guessing that a drunk would not be so even keeled.

I found the set (and hence the theater) unusually dark. There was a radio on stage that played music during the dialogue occasionally. At one point - McDormand asked Gallagher if the music was distracting - and someone from the audience shouted out "Yes!"

Throughout the show i often felt i was watching an old black and white movie that wasn't very good. The dialogue is pretty dated - but perhaps some actors with more chemistry or a director with a more progressive style could have given this old relic the boost it needed.

Despite the stars, I don't think this one will last very long. Nice try, but no dice.

Frost/Nixon

In 2007, you're bound to find more than few people alive that have no or very little knowledge of Richard Nixon, his presidency, and Watergate. I was only 3 at the time, myself. This play focuses on the story of the David Frost/Richard Nixon interviews - the first ones granted by Nixon after his infamous resignation. The Nixon camp assumed that the almost washed up Australian talk show host David Frost would be a pushover and Nixon would use the interviews as a way to get back into the public favor. The Frost camp, as you would imagine, thought the same thing but with respect to David Frost.

Frank Langella portrays Richard Nixon so well that you would think he rose from the grave to play the part himself. Not being as familiar with David Frost, I do think Michael Sheen played him well based on what other people tell me he was like.

As far as the play itself goes - too long! You do not keep an audience in the seats for 2 hours without intermission! Aside from that insult and injury - the play also had far too many filler and back story elements. Yes, we needed to know that back story to both sides, but possibly not as much as we were given.

Maybe this was just my expectation, but I thought we would see more of "the interview". I mean the play is billed as "The Face Off of the Century - Live on Stage" I think if they flipped the balance, the play would naturally build up to this important interview and you would be absorbed in it's progression and the drama could have unfolded within it. Instead, by the time the interview rolled around after 1 Hour and 30 minutes - you were anxious and trying to figure out how much longer this thing was going!

The rest of the cast was marginal - partially because some of the parts were written as marginal characters, but the the other ones were just played by marginal actors i suppose. I felt a vast crevasse between the talent of Frank Langella and everyone else. Or perhaps that was done on purpose? Isn't that how Richard Nixon was in real life - larger than everyone else?

In summary, a superb performance by Frank Langella that was neither matched by the rest of the characters in the play or the actors cast in those roles.