whiplash girl-child in the dark
JESUS H.
So I just saw Venus in Fur and oh my god I am in love I want to see it all of the times. I mean, I am going back-I didn't have my glasses! Sad nearsighted girl in the balcony, couldn't delineate the details of facial expression, AND STILL I MANAGED TO HAVE ONE OF THE MOST INTENSE VISCERAL THEATER REACTIONS SINCE...Arcadia 2009, quite possibly. (NO HANG ON, ALL'S WELL-but my point is, it's up there, instantly immortal to me.) Verrrrrrrry different reaction that that was-I literally screeched quietly in my seat, in glee, at the ending. SO TENSE SO SEXY SO UNPREDICTABLE SO MUCH AND SO VERY MANY THINGS I LOVED, and I left that theater shaking and I walked five blocks in the wrong direction before I realised that I'd got turned around by my own discombobulation and then spent the next half hour sitting in Starbucks, drinking water and histrionically texting oldstarnewshine.
God.
This play.
This play is a two-person David Ives show about a director and an actress in audition, it's 90 minutes without a break, the ~play within the play~ is based on Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Fur and the dynamics twist and shape and reshape around that, around all of that, all of the above: master/servant and actor/director and creator/creation and playwright/muse and man/woman, all these unequal power dynamics all turned directly on its head as the two people in that room go in and out of character/script and real identity, but the real identity is also a creation and oh GOD it's such an insane actor showcase-Hugh Dancy was the playwright/director/dude and he was great but really this is Nina Arianda's show, Nina Arianda the actress, Nina Arianda the motherfucking actress, one woman made of a thousand women, my god, there were worlds in that performance. (TONY MATERIAL OR I BURN ALL THE THINGS.) (IT WAS HER PREMIERE!! It was her off-Broadway premiere and now it's her Broadway premiere and she is SO TALENTED, she is SO MUCH. GOD.) It's just the two of them, and they take up all the space in the world, and it's hysterical and tense and sharp and unflinchingly ruinous and stunningly feminist and SO SEXY-god, they don't even kiss, but proximity and physicality and performance; this was so much a play about theater, brilliantly necessarily meta about the self-consciousness of that, the construction of boundaries in the guise of breaking them down and vice versa, the moment when performance stops being performance and when the play stopped being an audition; this too was a play about crossing lines and every moment was perfectly delineated-and it just kept going, kept raising the stakes and refusing to compromise and turning on its head and refusing to let you pick sides or rest assured in either of the characters and my GOD, THAT ENDING. THAT. ENDING. (AND THEN "KISS WITH A FIST" CAME ON OVER THE CREDITS AND I JUST HAD HYSTERICS IN MY SEAT.)
It's just. It's so perfectly everything-I-love that it's a play the kind of which I wish I could write (I don't even do plays! But THIS PLAY, SO MANY OF MY THINGS), but it's Ives and fast and funny and sharp-I love Ives when he's ambitious, love Ives even though "Sure Thing" is overdone and half of his one-acts are just him doing the Woody Allen short story piece, because Ives loves words and has a sharp electric brain that is basically too good for cheap gimmicks and OH, THIS PLAY, I WANT TO EAT THIS PLAY, I WANT A COPY SO I CAN INTERNALIZE IT AND QUOTE ALL THE WORDS. AND I WILL HAVE NINA ARIANDA AND HUGH DANCY IN MY HEAD WHEN I DO.
I WANT TO GO BACK, I'M GOING TO GO BACK, I'M GOING TO GO BACK ALL OF THE TIMES AND I AM GOING TO TAKE PEOPLE WITH ME AND I AM GOING TO CLAW THEIR ARMS OFF AND THEY ARE GOING TO FORGIVE ME BECAUSE THIS PLAY.
THIS PLAY.
(Sometimes I question whether or not I'm fully actualizing my existence. And then I see decent theater.)
So I just saw Venus in Fur and oh my god I am in love I want to see it all of the times. I mean, I am going back-I didn't have my glasses! Sad nearsighted girl in the balcony, couldn't delineate the details of facial expression, AND STILL I MANAGED TO HAVE ONE OF THE MOST INTENSE VISCERAL THEATER REACTIONS SINCE...Arcadia 2009, quite possibly. (NO HANG ON, ALL'S WELL-but my point is, it's up there, instantly immortal to me.) Verrrrrrrry different reaction that that was-I literally screeched quietly in my seat, in glee, at the ending. SO TENSE SO SEXY SO UNPREDICTABLE SO MUCH AND SO VERY MANY THINGS I LOVED, and I left that theater shaking and I walked five blocks in the wrong direction before I realised that I'd got turned around by my own discombobulation and then spent the next half hour sitting in Starbucks, drinking water and histrionically texting oldstarnewshine.
God.
This play.
This play is a two-person David Ives show about a director and an actress in audition, it's 90 minutes without a break, the ~play within the play~ is based on Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Fur and the dynamics twist and shape and reshape around that, around all of that, all of the above: master/servant and actor/director and creator/creation and playwright/muse and man/woman, all these unequal power dynamics all turned directly on its head as the two people in that room go in and out of character/script and real identity, but the real identity is also a creation and oh GOD it's such an insane actor showcase-Hugh Dancy was the playwright/director/dude and he was great but really this is Nina Arianda's show, Nina Arianda the actress, Nina Arianda the motherfucking actress, one woman made of a thousand women, my god, there were worlds in that performance. (TONY MATERIAL OR I BURN ALL THE THINGS.) (IT WAS HER PREMIERE!! It was her off-Broadway premiere and now it's her Broadway premiere and she is SO TALENTED, she is SO MUCH. GOD.) It's just the two of them, and they take up all the space in the world, and it's hysterical and tense and sharp and unflinchingly ruinous and stunningly feminist and SO SEXY-god, they don't even kiss, but proximity and physicality and performance; this was so much a play about theater, brilliantly necessarily meta about the self-consciousness of that, the construction of boundaries in the guise of breaking them down and vice versa, the moment when performance stops being performance and when the play stopped being an audition; this too was a play about crossing lines and every moment was perfectly delineated-and it just kept going, kept raising the stakes and refusing to compromise and turning on its head and refusing to let you pick sides or rest assured in either of the characters and my GOD, THAT ENDING. THAT. ENDING. (AND THEN "KISS WITH A FIST" CAME ON OVER THE CREDITS AND I JUST HAD HYSTERICS IN MY SEAT.)
It's just. It's so perfectly everything-I-love that it's a play the kind of which I wish I could write (I don't even do plays! But THIS PLAY, SO MANY OF MY THINGS), but it's Ives and fast and funny and sharp-I love Ives when he's ambitious, love Ives even though "Sure Thing" is overdone and half of his one-acts are just him doing the Woody Allen short story piece, because Ives loves words and has a sharp electric brain that is basically too good for cheap gimmicks and OH, THIS PLAY, I WANT TO EAT THIS PLAY, I WANT A COPY SO I CAN INTERNALIZE IT AND QUOTE ALL THE WORDS. AND I WILL HAVE NINA ARIANDA AND HUGH DANCY IN MY HEAD WHEN I DO.
I WANT TO GO BACK, I'M GOING TO GO BACK, I'M GOING TO GO BACK ALL OF THE TIMES AND I AM GOING TO TAKE PEOPLE WITH ME AND I AM GOING TO CLAW THEIR ARMS OFF AND THEY ARE GOING TO FORGIVE ME BECAUSE THIS PLAY.
THIS PLAY.
(Sometimes I question whether or not I'm fully actualizing my existence. And then I see decent theater.)