Plays

I've seen lots of them. They're everywhere in this stinking city (which is not necessarilly a bad thing). So here goes:

The night after Spamalot we saw a play called Doubt. I really liked this play. It was about a nun principal of a catholic school's suspicions of a priest's relationship with one of her students. The priest is a great guy, well respected in the community, but the nun is relentless in her pursuit of what she "knows" this man has done. By the end of the play, I left wondering whether or not he had done it. While the nun is absolutely sure that he is guilty, his alibis all check out. He was taking the boy in as the only black student in the school, coming from an abusive home without a strong father figure. The priest thought that he was doing good building this relationship. Anyway, the point is that it was a really good play that made you think.

The day after Doubt was Edward Albee's Seascape. This is a play about an older couple taking a vacation on the beach. The first act is all setting up their realtionship. The older woman, who wouldn't stop talking, wanted to do something with the life she had left. Her husband thought that they deserved a break. He just wanted to sit. Act one ends with two giant lizards showing up on the beach. Act two reveals that these lizards came from the sea, talk in english (although they don't know some concepts, such as emotion), and left because they just felt different from the other lizards. As the older couple tries to explain the evolutionary process to the lizards and that they will eventually become like humans, complete with emotions that they are just feeling for the first time. In the end, the old man tries to teach the lizards what it's like to live while realizing that he isn't living himself.

Friday night we saw a Greek play called Hecuba. It's the tragic story of the deposed queen of Troy. Her daughter is offered up as a sacrifice to the dead Achilles, she discovers the son she sent to Thrace for safekeeping has been killed by the very person who was to keep him safe, and all the while, she can't seem to find someone to kill her also. It was very well done, with simple costumes, simple set, and good acting. One interesting thing was the chorus. I didn't know what to expect from the chorus, but I was pleasantly surprised. They didn't always talk at the same time, and when they did, it was understandable. They even broke out into creepy song every once in a while.

Saturday night we saw Abigail's Party, which I loathed. The characters were shallower than a puddle and they were soooo annoying. It was supposed to be funny, but I had a difficult time seeing the funny over the tragedy. Every single character was so intensely unhappy. Ick.

Yesterday, we went to the Brooklyn Tabernacle. It was okay. The pastor that was speaking wasn't the greatest, but the music was pretty good. Directly after church, we had a matinee of A Light in the Piazza, a love story musical. I was very impressed with it. I much prefer classic musicals, where songs happen as a way to express intense emotions on the behalf of the character, as opposed to Phantom or Les Miz, which always exist at that high emotion. Immediately following that show, Mike and I went to a play called The Mandrake in this small black box theatre with maybe 40 seats in it. It's what's called a sex farce, which had me nervous, but it wasn't that bad. Some of the humor was a bit naughty, but overall, it was a good comedy. Then, when we got back from that, I went to see Memoirs of a Geisha, which was fantastic.

Okay, now I've caught everyone up. I hope you got bored reading all that.