Winning a battle, losing a war.
http://sohorep.org/winners-and-losers
Two middle-aged, forever struggling, eternally aspiring Canadian males are playing winners and losers starting with Mexico (great food, Salma Hayek, beaches and pyramids - win!) and Snowden (stuck in Moscow with them weird Russians, dr Zhivago style - big fat nay), getting progressively personal and competitive (who's got better masturbation skills? who's more street-smart? who's a better dresser? who's richer?) and pseudo-uncomfortable. I was waiting for a dick measurement moment, they didn't go for that double loser though.
It was still cute and quite smart and eloquent at times, considering that it was a semi-improv, and actors are not the sharpest tools by trade.
Nicely structured hour of entertainment, that at the end of the show leaves you with nothing to take away.
http://www.adelicatebalancebroadway.com
A poised elderly couple enjoy their quiet end of days, while being constantly harassed with wife's good for nothing sister and their hysterical boomerang offspring.
First and foremost: Glenn Close (the wife) as a celebrity bait - loser. Stiff, one-dimensional caricature of a perfect... something. Not entirely her fault, as this lengthy joke of a play (Pulitzer? Seriously? 1966 was a loser, see Nelly Sachs) prohibits her heroine any real feelings and emotions, while making her deliver random, whimsical but unfunny rants. Ms Glen looks like she's about to step into a Frozen musical, belch out "Let it go" and freeze her unruly alcoholic sister (Lindsay Duncan - huge win!) with an icy stare.
Other winners include a terrific minor constellation of John Lithgow, Rob Balaban and Clare Higgins), and a great subplot of a visiting couple of best friends, who are afraid of something big and unmentioned, and who therefore decided to check themselves in as houseguests on a permanent visit. They are entitled, very cool and intriguing, but sadly, leave the scene sooner then a real conflict gets a chance to unroll.
The play is bumpy, and the family of characters, rather then humans, gets a bit tiresome. Still it's a fun ride that's well worth a visit.
http://2st.com/shows/current-production/between-riverside-and-crazy
Walt Spangler’s set is a hands-down winner. Falling apart and palatial rent-controlled Riverside apartment is wet dream of every New Yorker, that's why a revolving stage, reminiscent of a merry-go-round bed in a love hotel is a perfect set-up for this weirdly socialistic and quite misanthropic, racially conflicted play. The cast let by a kingly Stephen McKinley Henderson and directed by Austin Pendleton, is game and they brave unrealistic plot twists with energy and gusto. The playwright, Stephen Adly Guirgis (remember "Motherfucker in a hat"? Yeah, I kinda forgot it too, except that terrific Bobby Connavale performance), is simply trying too hard. Were he to stop pouring out his minor and major shockers and start listening to his characters, he'd have a real chance of winning.
http://itsonlyaplay.com
Great ensemble, decent directing and killer perfomances by Martin Short and Stockhard Channing notwithstanding, I'd have to declare it a loser. Trifle and didactic, manifesting love for the theater and boringly redundant, this strategically rewritten revival of 1986 Terrence McNally’s goes for Allenesque quips ("Broadway became Hollywood's stature of Liberty: give me your tired, your poor") but satisfies itself with abundance of tabloid style name-dropping (“Who is James Franco, and why is he sexting me?” “I won’t work with animals, children or Frank Langella.”)
http://www.mcctheater.org/currentseason-1415.html
The Nether.
Mildly disturbing pedophiliac loser about some grim future where yet another "corporation" persecutes an evil owner of a virtual Victorian children brothel.
Sad cast in sad costumes slowly moves through a sad script. Sad audience sadly snoozes. Everybody looses. Not like the house won either.
Two middle-aged, forever struggling, eternally aspiring Canadian males are playing winners and losers starting with Mexico (great food, Salma Hayek, beaches and pyramids - win!) and Snowden (stuck in Moscow with them weird Russians, dr Zhivago style - big fat nay), getting progressively personal and competitive (who's got better masturbation skills? who's more street-smart? who's a better dresser? who's richer?) and pseudo-uncomfortable. I was waiting for a dick measurement moment, they didn't go for that double loser though.
It was still cute and quite smart and eloquent at times, considering that it was a semi-improv, and actors are not the sharpest tools by trade.
Nicely structured hour of entertainment, that at the end of the show leaves you with nothing to take away.
http://www.adelicatebalancebroadway.com
A poised elderly couple enjoy their quiet end of days, while being constantly harassed with wife's good for nothing sister and their hysterical boomerang offspring.
First and foremost: Glenn Close (the wife) as a celebrity bait - loser. Stiff, one-dimensional caricature of a perfect... something. Not entirely her fault, as this lengthy joke of a play (Pulitzer? Seriously? 1966 was a loser, see Nelly Sachs) prohibits her heroine any real feelings and emotions, while making her deliver random, whimsical but unfunny rants. Ms Glen looks like she's about to step into a Frozen musical, belch out "Let it go" and freeze her unruly alcoholic sister (Lindsay Duncan - huge win!) with an icy stare.
Other winners include a terrific minor constellation of John Lithgow, Rob Balaban and Clare Higgins), and a great subplot of a visiting couple of best friends, who are afraid of something big and unmentioned, and who therefore decided to check themselves in as houseguests on a permanent visit. They are entitled, very cool and intriguing, but sadly, leave the scene sooner then a real conflict gets a chance to unroll.
The play is bumpy, and the family of characters, rather then humans, gets a bit tiresome. Still it's a fun ride that's well worth a visit.
http://2st.com/shows/current-production/between-riverside-and-crazy
Walt Spangler’s set is a hands-down winner. Falling apart and palatial rent-controlled Riverside apartment is wet dream of every New Yorker, that's why a revolving stage, reminiscent of a merry-go-round bed in a love hotel is a perfect set-up for this weirdly socialistic and quite misanthropic, racially conflicted play. The cast let by a kingly Stephen McKinley Henderson and directed by Austin Pendleton, is game and they brave unrealistic plot twists with energy and gusto. The playwright, Stephen Adly Guirgis (remember "Motherfucker in a hat"? Yeah, I kinda forgot it too, except that terrific Bobby Connavale performance), is simply trying too hard. Were he to stop pouring out his minor and major shockers and start listening to his characters, he'd have a real chance of winning.
http://itsonlyaplay.com
Great ensemble, decent directing and killer perfomances by Martin Short and Stockhard Channing notwithstanding, I'd have to declare it a loser. Trifle and didactic, manifesting love for the theater and boringly redundant, this strategically rewritten revival of 1986 Terrence McNally’s goes for Allenesque quips ("Broadway became Hollywood's stature of Liberty: give me your tired, your poor") but satisfies itself with abundance of tabloid style name-dropping (“Who is James Franco, and why is he sexting me?” “I won’t work with animals, children or Frank Langella.”)
http://www.mcctheater.org/currentseason-1415.html
The Nether.
Mildly disturbing pedophiliac loser about some grim future where yet another "corporation" persecutes an evil owner of a virtual Victorian children brothel.
Sad cast in sad costumes slowly moves through a sad script. Sad audience sadly snoozes. Everybody looses. Not like the house won either.