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July '14 Digital Week II
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 09 July 2014 01:20
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Blood Ties
(Lionsgate)
For his draggy remake of a 2008 French crime drama, director Guillaume Canet fumbles the ball by setting his version—which pits brothers (detective and career criminal) against each other—in 1970s New York.
Despite authentic performances by Clive Owen and Billy Crudup as the brothers and Marion Cotillard, Zoe Saldana and Mila Kunis as their women, Canet (who co-wrote the melodramatic script with James Gray) relies on misused period songs and an atmosphere that never rings true; consequently, the movie fatally suffers. The Blu-ray transfer looks great; lone extra is a making-of featurette.
(Eagle Rock)
Despite the fact that his last really good album was nearly 40 years ago, Elton John has pleased more pop music fans that anyone else, and his second Las Vegas residency (named The Million Dollar Piano after a keyboard that doubles as a graphics/animation projector) continues his audience-drawing prowess.
For nearly two hours, John and his crack band tear through 18 songs, including beloved standards (“Your Song,” “Tiny Dancer”), indelibly crafted smash hits (“Philadelphia Freedom,” “Bennie and the Jets”) and even rare album cuts (“Better Off Dead,” “Indian Sunset”). There’s a good hi-def transfer, and the concert’s DTS audio is stunning. Extras are a making-of featurette and five songs from a concert in Kiev, Ukraine.
Enemy
(Lionsgate)
In a straightforward drama turned into pretentious nonsense, Jake Gyllenhaal plays both a history teacher and an actor who are either doppelgangers or split personalities of the same cheating husband.
Needlessly making convoluted psychological studies is director Denis Villeneuve’s raison d’etre—his other overwrought dramas include Prisoners and Incendies—and he consolidates that reputation here, while poor Gyllenhaal is unable to do anything with his character(s)’ disparate fragments. The Blu-ray looks fine; lone extra is a making-of featurette.
(UMe)
Shot during a 2012 Las Vegas residency, this nearly three-hour concert shows that Axl Rose, even without Slash, Duff, Izzy, etc., can fashion a reasonable facsimile of Guns’n’Roses by playing classics from Appetite for Destruction alongside later progressive-rock numbers like “November Rain,” “Estranged,” “Street of Dreams” and “This I Love.”
Axl can still shriek and—usually—hit the high notes, and his band (which includes guitarists Bumblefoot and DJ Ashba) can shred with the best of them. Hi-def video and audio are first-rate, although the 3D shoot is merely gimmicky; extras include band member interviews (but not Axl).
I Vinti/The Vanquished
(Raro)
Michelangelo Antonioni’s stark 1953 drama might pale in comparison to his stylistic masterworks from the 1960s, but this uncompromising account of casual murders committed by young men in Italy, France and England is still powerfully disturbing.
The gritty B&W photography loses some luster on Blu-ray thanks to too much cleaning of the digital image, but the film remains essential viewing for Antonioni aficionados. Extras comprise the uncut version of the Italian episode, Antonioni’s 1953 short Tentato Suicido and producer and actor interviews.
(Magnolia)
Why director Lars von Trier is still taken seriously is a question worth pondering after sitting through his ponderous and shallow two-part drama that for four excruciating hours never makes its title heroine in the least dramatically or psychologically credible.
Von Trier’s juvenile tricks—onscreen numbers counting each thrust of her sexual partners, obvious and unoriginal classical music cues, “shocking” carnal encounters—are as archaic in the internet era as your racist uncle complaining about Obama. The hi-def transfer is superb; short featurettes are extras.
DVDs of the Week
Arne Dahl—Complete 1st Season
(MHz)
The detective novels of Swedish author Arne Dahl are compellingly dramatized without losing their original narrative flavor: the stories, including the fascinatingly dark two-part The Blinded Man, are stylishly filmed and acted with utmost conviction.
The first season’s ten episodes are included on five discs, which translates into nearly 15 hours of gripping if relentlessly downbeat entertainment.
(PBS)
Architect Stephen Chung engagingly hosts this behind the scenes look at the creation of several 21st century public, private, cultural and artistic buildings, along with interviews with the architects whose visions were realized.
Among the “cool spaces” covered in this two-disc set are the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium, the new Barnes Institute in Philadelphia, the sensational Seattle Public Library and the Barclays Center, Brooklyn’s new basketball and soon to be hockey arena.
Helix—Complete 1st Season
(Sony)
Although there are echoes of earlier shows and movies during this tantalizing sci-fi drama about researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dealing with a quickly mutating, deadly virus (including an unfortunate zombie outbreak), the clever plotting keeps you on the edge of your seat as the stories play themselves out.
The 3-disc set includes all 13 of the first season’s episodes; extras include commentaries, deleted scenes and four featurettes.
(Warner Archive)
James Lapine’s ingeniously structured tribute to The Greatest Living Broadway Composer uses interviews from various times of Sondheim’s life to stitch together a seemless portrait from his early days until now.
There are also masterly musical examples of his work from theater luminaries like Laura Osnes—who needs to star in any Sondheim musical, pronto—that illuminate overlooked gems like “Opening Doors” from Merrily We Roll Along.
July '14 Digital Week I
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 02 July 2014 01:26
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Back to Front—Peter Gabriel Live in London
(Eagle Rock)
Like most classic rockers, Peter Gabriel needed a gimmick for his latest tour, so he played his breakthrough 1986 album So in its entirety from beginning to end—or at least, in the order Gabriel wanted to play it. He stuck “In Your Eyes,” side two’s lead track, at the end, so the concert would finish with a rousing audience participation number rather than the bizarre novelty “This Is the Picture.”
Filmed at last summer’s London shows, Gabriel and his crack band—the same men he toured with in ’86, when I saw him twice—tear through the nine So tunes and a dozen other Gabriel classics; the encore ends with the always emotional “Biko.” The Blu-ray image looks super, the sound is even better; lone extra is an interview with Gabriel and tour director Rob Sinclair.
(Sony Classics)
This amiable romance, set in Mumbai, about a young wife who makes a daily lunch for her ungrateful husband and the widower who gets her delicious food by mistake, flirts with but never surrenders to cloying sentimentality.
The winningness of the two leads—Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur—makes this lightweight but charming movie work. The Blu-ray transfer is first-rate; lone extra is writer/director Ritesh Batra’s commentary, which basically just describes what’s happening onscreen.
Operation Petticoat
(Olive Films)
This tame, sniggering comedy might have been daring upon its release in 1959 (it even got a Best Screenplay Oscar nomination), but today, watching women and men in a submarine with innuendos galore is an embarrassment for all involved.
Cary Grant always retains his dignity, which ends up looking ridiculous in this context, while Tony Curtis, Dina Merrill, Joan O’Brien and Dick Sargent at least seem in on the one-joke premise; director Blake Edwards would make better comedies later in his career. The hi-def transfer looks enticing.
(Millennium)
Based on a true story, this engrossing drama pits a couple which holds up Mafia social clubs (because guns aren’t allowed) against both the Mob and the FBI, along with a star reporter who puts himself into the story.
Raymond De Felitta’s relaxed direction allows the stranger-than-fiction plot to unfurl entertainingly, and he coaxes standout performances from Michael Pitt and Nina Arianda as the movie’s Bonnie and Clyde. The Blu-ray image looks excellent; extras include deleted scenes and a director commentary.
The Unknown Known
(Weinstein Co)
For his latest non-fiction feature, director Errol Morris takes on chronic dissembler and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who (as his own history makes clear) can be blamed for foisting Dick Cheney on an unsuspecting world. The intelligent and aware Rumsfeld parries with Morris over the disastrous Iraq War and other subjects, and if the result isn’t as memorable or intoxicatingly watchable as The Fog of War (about another Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara), it’s still a valuable document about the Bush presidency of mass destruction.
The hi-def transfer looks good; extras include a Morris interview and commentary and 1989’s televised Secretaries of Defense roundtable.
Anita—Speaking Truth to Power
(First Run)
More than two decades after she accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, law professor Anita Hill talks about how necessary her bravery was—not that it helped, for Thomas was confirmed (barely)—since it paved the way for real discussion of workplace harassment.
Hearing that Thomas’s own wife left a recent phone message for Hill that asked her to apologize for what she did is priceless—and typical. Extras include a 45-minute Hill speech and playwright Eve Ensler’s curated 92nd St Y performance.
The Boondocks—Season 4 (Sony)
The Bridge—Season 1 (Fox)
The FBI—Season 8 (Warner Archive)
Without creator Aaron MacGruder’s scaldingly funny talent, the animated series The Boondocks returns for a fourth season of 10 episodes’ worth of cutting-edge if hit-or-miss humor.
The first season of the American The Bridge—which turns an engrossingly original series about Danish and Swedish police solving crimes along their border into a shrill and obvious US-Mexican border investigation—wastes the always watchable Diane Kruger.
For its eighth season (1972-3), The FBI again shows Efram Zimbalist and cohorts solving all manner of crimes, with and against guest stars ranging from then up-and-coming TV faces as David Soul, Mariette Hartley and Robert Urich to veterans like Dean Stockwell and William Windom. Boondocks extras are two featurettes; Bridge extras are featurettes, interviews, deleted scenes and a commentary.
(PBS)
Stanley Nelson’s absorbing two-hour chronicle of one of American history’s most volatile years (1964) recounts the important civil rights activism by both outsiders and locals in Mississippi to fight back against, and finally help eradicate, the great wall of segregation and white supremacy.
They had to suffer violent intimidation from bombings to church burnings to outright murder, but the faces of those being interviewed—proudly defiant, even fifty years later—show that such tactics were no match for such patient and widespread organization.
It Started in Naples
(Warner Archive)
Clark Gable and Sophia Loren paired together seems a no-brainer, except for the evidence of this forced would-be romantic comedy from 1960, directed with a supreme amount of leadenness by Melville Shavelson.
Gable was at the tail end of a legendary career and Loren was at her zenith of sultriness, but even with their international star power and such picturesque Isles of Capri locales, this is a harmless but wasted attempt to squeeze laughs and love out of tired material.
(Alive Mind)
The case for nuclear energy—the only clean form of energy in today’s world—is made by director Robert Stone in this one-sided screed that paints anti-nukes as either naïve rockers (there’s footage from 1979’s “No Nukes” concerts) or out-of-touch militants like the shrill Helen Caldicott, trotted out as representative of those against nuclear power.
Too bad there’s precious little nuance here: defenders basically say, “Yeah, Chernobyl was bad but…” or “Fukushima was bad but…” or “Three Mile Island was bad but,” which is anything but reassuring to the rest of us. Extras comprise Stone’s interview by Michael Moore, pro-nuke James Hansen and Stephen Tisdale interviews and a Stone commentary.
Two Lives
(Sundance Selects)
In this jagged and complex historical puzzle, director Georg Mass dramatizes the true but unheralded cases of youngsters who were the offspring of Scandinavian mothers and Nazi fathers, and the attempts to sweep such embarrassments under the rug in ensuing decades.
This story of a family’s bonds fraying when the truth finally comes out is richly and substantively told, with sublime acting from Liv Ullmann, Juliane Kohler and Ken Duken.
CD of the Week
(UMe)
Although its best albums (Louder Than Love and Badmotorfinger) were behind them, Seattle’s biggest and grungiest foursome made their smash popular breakthrough in 1994 with Superunknown, as singer Chris Cornell’s banshee wails, guitarist Kim Thayil’s nasty and heavy licks and the pummeling rhythm section of bassist Ben Shepherd and drummer Matt Cameron coalesced on such classic tunes as “Fell on Black Days,” “The Day I Tried to Live,” “Spoonman” and what has become the group’s signature tune, “Black Hole Sun.”
This two-disc expanded version of the album include the original 15 tracks and a bonus track from the original vinyl release, “She Likes Surprises” on the first disc; and an assortment of demos, rehearsals, B-sides, and alternate mixes on disc two. Some of these tracks have previously been released, but it's nice to have them all collected together. For those who are really into collectibles, there's a super deluxe edition that comprises 4 CDs and a Blu-ray disc.
June '14 Digital Week IV
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 24 June 2014 23:47
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Ernest and Celestine
(Cinedigm)
The beloved French children’s books about a mouse and a bear who are unlikely friends becomes a charming and touching animated film by directors Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar and Benjamin Renner, which recreates author Gabrielle Vincent’s illustrations without slavish imitation.
The original (and superior) French version features the voices of Lambert Wilson and Pauline Brunner; the English version features Forrest Whittaker and Mackenzie Foy. On Blu-ray, the images look fantastic; extras include a 50-minute making-of documentary and a Renner interview.
(PBS)
An intense David Tennant is Will Burton, a defense lawyer whose successful defense of an accused killer leads to threats that culminate in his wife’s death witnessed by their terrified young son—and leads to the same man being defended by Will’s colleague Maggie Gardner (an equally strong Sophie Okonedo).
Creator David Wolstencroft’s script, though filled with standard genre plotholes, overcomes its overfamiliar courtroom setting with twists in both characterization and story. The hi-def transfer is impeccable; extras are Wolstencroft and Tennant interviews.
Hearts and Minds
(Criterion)
Peter Davis’s shattering 1974 Vietnam War documentary—one of the most fair-minded but forceful pieces of cinematic journalism ever made, and a Best Documentary Oscar winner—remains relevant in a world of governmental overreach in all of our lives.
Davis’ compelling and comprehensive footage and interviews are a sign of the intelligence, indeed intellect, behind such a thorough dismantling of the lies of those conducting the war, and Criterion’s new edition contains a first-rate hi-def transfer, Davis’ thoughtful commentary and two hours of added footage, including interviews with David Brinkley and General Westmoreland. If there was ever a must-see film, this is it.
House of Mortal Sin
(Kino/Redemption)
Despite Pete Walker’s reputation as a purveyor of trashy genre movies, his Home thoughtfully studies a hypocritical culture destroying an intimate relationship between a 28-year-old rock star and a 14-year-old girl who could pass for 21, whileHouse takes seriously a rampaging priest out for blood, with poisoned communion wafers and confession recordings in his arsenal.
These are popcorn movies with deeper implications; Alison Elliot (teen) and Anthony Sharp (priest) give committed performances. The Blu-ray images are superbly rendered; extras are a Walker commentary and interviews.
Kismet
(Warner Archive)
Russian composer Alexander Borodin’s ravishing music morphed into Broadway show tunes in Robert Wright and George Forrest’s popular musical, turned by director Vincente Minnelli into a glittering 1955 Cinemascope showcase.
Howard Keel, Ann Blyth, Dolores Grey and Sebastian Cabot perform classics like “Stranger in Paradise” and “Baubles, Bangles and Beads” in this spectacularly costumed and eye-popping physical production. On Blu-ray, the photography looks dazzling; extras include shorts and outtakes.
(Warners)
Martin Scorsese opted out of helming this adaptation of Mark Helprin’s fantastical novel, saying it’s unfilmable: and after seeing writer Akiva Goldsman’s directorial debut, I concur. This fairy tale-cum-allegory about life, love, death and the supernatural might not be so ridiculous on the page where a reader can conjure images, but onscreen, Colin Farrell, William Hurt, Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly and appealing newcomer Jessica Brown Findlay all look properly embarrassed as part of this farrago.
Even the visuals, which should be the best thing about the film, are inexplicably drained of color, which the Blu-ray gets unerringly right; extras include featurettes and interviews.
DVDs of the Week
Elaine Stritch—Shoot Me
(Sundance Selects)
Chemi Karasawa’s documentary about the irrepressible 89-year-old actress—who, decades after conquering Broadway did the same on TV’s 30 Rock—savvily keeps up with this volcanic force of nature who dishes about her life and career, rehearses her new one-woman show and hangs out with friends and colleagues.
Interviews with James Gandolfini, Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Cherry Jones, Nathan Lane, John Turturro and directors George C. Wolfe and Harold Prince are funny and touching, but Elaine’s indomitable spirit towers over this gracious glimpse at a one-of-a-kind personality. Extras include deleted scenes, interviews and a photo shoot.
Masters of Sex—Complete 1st Season
(Sony)
The second season of Cards crumbles with its single-minded plotting of vice president Frank Underwood and wife Claire (Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, both splendid) maneuvering their way toward the Oval Office—the season’s 13 episodes grow tiresome after it’s obvious no one can stand up to them. Best of a solid supporting cast is gorgeous and talented Joanna Going as the First Lady, a welcome return.
The first season of Sex introduces Masters and Johnson beginning their seminal sexual studies: the series succeeds best when the pair (Michael Sheen and Lizzy Kaplan, both excellent) is allowed to deal with personal and professional problems with candor and humor. Cards extras are featurettes; Sex extras are commentaries, deleted scenes and interviews.
Jimmy P
(IFC)
Arnaud Despleschin’s tantalizing drama treats a Native American with no condescension in the post-WWII era, when even the “best and brightest” were as racist as everyone else.
Much of the film comprises meetings between battle-scarred Jimmy P. (Benecio Del Toro’s understated performance) and a sympathetic therapist (Mathieu Amalric, a bit overdone), and their scenes together are appealingly conversational. As for the rest, it’s bland enough to nearly derail the strengths of Del Toro’s effortless portrayal of a deceptively difficult role. Extras are a making-of and interviews.
(First Run)
The world’s most famous and controversial 16 acres of land—the World Trade Center site—has been thoroughly, even redundantly covered since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but Richard Hankin’s documentary brings a fresh perspective to a decade’s worth of infighting among local, state and federal municipalities that finally decides what should be built: a memorial, more office towers, etc.
Hearing once again from principals like real-estate mogul Larry Silverstein, who famously bought the Towers right before the attacks, seems less repetitive in this context. Extras include two brief shorts.
2 Autumns, 3 Winters
(Film Movement)
If not for the French subtitles, this alternately irritating and enjoyable rom-com about the randomness of relationships could be confused with self-consciously quirky American independent films.
Writer-director Sebastien Betbeder puts his characters’ self-consciousness right into the movie—they talk directly to the camera, even describing events as they happen to them—which (along with an accomplished cast) helps alleviate a terminal case of cutesiness. The bonus short, Sean Ellis’s Voyage d’Affaires, ably sets up its single joke, thanks to Guillaume Canet and Melanie Laurent.
(Virgil Films)
AJ Schnack and David Wilson’s documentary about Branson, Missouri—a small heartland town that lays claim to more live-performance venues than Las Vegas or Broadway—gets up close and personal with several performers and their families, along with the town’s mayor and others connected to shows.
Although it’s an interesting overview, at 110 minutes the movie eventually wears out its welcome, since its impressionistic approach makes these people’s stories seem unnecessarily abridged.
CD of the Week
Strauss Conducts Strauss
(Deutsche Grammophon)
(Deutsche Grammophon)
Composer Richard Strauss, also an excellent conductor, ably led orchestras in many of his seminal works—and those of Mozart, Beethoven and others as well—as this seven-disc set demonstrates. These historic mono recordings (spanning 1921 to 1941) comprise Strauss’s energetic readings of his great tone poems like Don Juan, Death and Transfiguration and Don Quixote (which, for comparison’s sake, we get twice, from 1933 and 1941), and even four of his own lieder, as he accompanies baritone Heinrich Schlusnus on piano.
As a bonus, his renditions of Mozart’s last three monumental symphonies and Beethoven’s 5th and 7th symphonies show that other composers’ visions were well-served with Strauss on the podium.
NYC Theater Roundup—Ayckbourn Ensemble & Shakespeare in the Park
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 18 June 2014 22:58
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Farcicals
Time of My Life
Written & directed by Alan Ayckbourn
Performances through June 29, 2014
Much Ado About Nothing
Written by William Shakespeare; directed by Jack O’Brien
Performances through July 6, 2014
When We Were Young and Unafraid
Written by Sarah Treem; directed by Pam MacKinnon
Performances through August 10, 2014
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| The cast of Farcicals (photo: Andrew Higgins) |
The Ayckbourn Ensemble continues its too-short stay during this year’s Brits Off Broadway with two more glittering productions, written and directed by one of our supreme masters, Alan Ayckbourn.Farcicals, comprising two uproarious new one-acts, is sheer entertainment, while Time of My Life—a 1992 play which the words tragicomedy and dramedy do not do it justice—is an incisive study of family dynamics structured ingeniously (as always) by the playwright.
Time starts at a dinner party celebrating Laura’s 54th birthday at a favorite local haunt: in attendance are her husband Gerry, their oldest son Glyn, his wife Stephanie, their youngest—and Mom’s favorite—son Adam and his new girlfriend, Maureen. Over two acts, Ayckbourn moves around among Laura and Gerry after the party, Adam and Maureen weeks earlier and Glyn and Stephanie months later, all of them at the same restaurant presided over by waiters of varying degrees of ineptitude and brazenness…or both.
These precisely written scenes, which open avenues of clarity to the heart of these couples’ relationships, are never obscured by the playwright’s time-shifting structure, thanks to his own ingenious directing which shows how even the smallest events cause huge implications, whether marriage, divorce or death caused by imbibing too much alcohol at a birthday dinner. It’s unfair to single anyone out in the exemplary cast, so hats off to Rachel Caffey (Maureen), Russell Dixon (Gerry), Sarah Parks (Laura), Emily Pithon (Laura), Ben Porters (waiters), James Powell (Adam) and Richard Stacey (Glyn).
By its very title, Farcicals is less heady stuff, but these one-acts about two couples’ marital difficulties show off Ayckbourn’s sharply funny writing, even in door-slamming farce. As one-liners and pratfalls combine for irresistible lunacy, Ayckbourn shrewdly directs the captivating quartet of Elizabeth Boag, Bill Champion, Sarah Stanley and Kim Wall, all giving brilliantly broad performances that ensure Farcicals is more than just a mere diversion.
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| Rabe and Mendes in Much Ado About Nothing (photo: Joan Marcus) |
The current Shakespeare in the Park offering, Much Ado About Nothing, may be the best-directed show I’ve seen in Central Park. That might be faint praise, but Jack O’Brien’s agile and frisky staging of that most pleasing of Shakespeare’s star-crossed romantic comedies—which pivots on those eternally dueling wits Beatrice and Benedick, whose supposed loathing for each other masks their finally requited love—provides nearly three hours of outdoor enchantment.
O’Brien’s visually luscious staging comprises John Lee Beatty’s charming unit set of an Italian villa, Jane Greenwood’s zippy costumes and Jeff Croiter’s elegant lighting, which work wonders complementing the play’s melodiously musical poetry. Even O’Brien’s additions—opening in Italian before seguing to the Bard’s English, having characters magically moving a wall—don’t detract from the zesty comic atmosphere.
Much of the acting is impressive, especially Ismelia Mendes’ immensely appealing Hero (Beatrice’s cousin) and John Glover’s powerfully-spoken Leonato (Beatrice’s uncle), while Brian Stokes Mitchell’s charismatic Don Pedro smartly gets a song to sing and John Pankow’s bumbling cop Dogberry is amusingly hammy without going overboard. My lone quibble is our B&B: Hamish Linklater’s adequate Benedick has little chemistry with Lily Rabe’s Beatrice, who incessantly barks out her lines whether they are meant to be insulting, apologetic or thoughtful. Happily, there are enough compensations to make this a lively and engaging Much Ado.
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| Kazan and Jones in When We Were Young and Unafraid (photo: Joan Marcus) |
In Sarah Treem’s ambitious but fatally unfocused When We Were Young and Unafraid, middle-aged Agnes runs a bed and breakfast on an isolated island near Seattle, which doubles as a safe house for battered women, with her burgeoning feminist 16-year-old daughter Penny. New arrivals are Mary Anne, a fleeing young wife—beaten badly with a swollen lip and nasty cut underneath her right eye—and Hannah, a black militant feminist who spouts clichéd jargon about oppression and tries to get Agnes to break free from her shackles.
Treem’s hackneyed plot, cartoonish caricatures and trite dialogue bring her play time and again to a screeching halt. By setting it in 1972, Treem gives herself license to discuss feminism ad nauseum and even has Agnes misspeak and say “Ozarks” instead of “Ozone,” if only to show how new the latter term was, apparently. (Similarly, Mary Anne asks Penny if she has a rubber, not a condom.) Then there’s a new court case, “Roe vs. Wade”: when Hannah says that perhaps this means “The times are changing,” Agnes ruefully retorts “They’ll change back” with heavy-handed dramatic irony, calculated to make audience members gasp at such amazing prescience.
For once, that able director Pam Mackinnon is hamstrung by the growing preposterousness. That none of the relationships is believable from the outset forces several fine performers—Cherry Jones (Agnes), Zoe Kazan (Mary Anne), Cherise Boothe (Hannah), Morgan Saylor (Penny)—to awkwardly try (and ultimately fail) to get a handle on the sketchy characters Treem has provided.
Farcicals
Time of My Life
59 E 59 Theaters, 59 East 59th Street, New York, NY
britsoffbroadway.com
Much Ado About Nothing
Delacorte Theatre, Central Park, New York, NY
shakespeareinthepark.org
When We Were Young and Unafraid
Manhattan Theatre Club, 131 West 55th Street, New York, NY
manhattantheatreclub.com
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