What a treat! Great acting and all around great show. Don't miss this one!! And all four actors were really nice at the stage door. Get a window card and have them sign it.....you'll be proud of yourself!
If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it?
These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.
Ooooh, I should bring an I-beam to the stage door and have them sign that...
Words don't deserve that kind of malarkey. They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good anymore…I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.
proud adjective, proud·er, proud·est. 1. feeling pleasure or satisfaction over something regarded as highly honorable or creditable to oneself (often followed by of, an infinitive, or a clause).
2. having, proceeding from, or showing a high opinion of one's own dignity, importance, or superiority.
3. having or showing self-respect or self-esteem.
4. highly gratifying to the feelings or self-esteem: It was a proud day for him when his son entered college.
5. highly honorable or creditable: a proud achievement.
Buying a ticket and sitting through a play is hardly an achievement. Nor is standing in line to get people to sign a piece of paper.
I'm not saying the play is worth seeing, I'm sure it may be....but it certainly won't instill any sort of pride in me by watching. Joy, maybe. Contentment, maybe.
If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it?
These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.
Tyne Daly was very good. I agree. And a difficult task it was, given that the play itself is unbelievably tedious. Bobby Steggert also did a fine job. Fred Weller, who I think is a wonderful actor, was miscast and seemed very, very uncomfortable throughout. Listening to and watching that child of theirs, whoever he is, was painful.
That horrible child was in the bathtub for an hour. He would've either drowned or been approved. A terribly written and annoying character.
"The sexual energy between the mother and son really concerns me!"-random woman behind me at Next to Normal
"I want to meet him after and bang him!"-random woman who exposed her breasts at Rock of Ages, referring to James Carpinello
I'm only proud that I didn't get up and leave after 10 minutes, which would have disturbed the 4 people I would have had to climb over.
This is an absolutely terrible play - reductive, cheaply sentimental, artificial, awkwardly manipulated. Not a word of dialogue sounds like human speech, not a moment is motivated by any sense of how people behave. Characters alternate between saying baldly rude and hurtful things to one another (with no reaction) and suddenly becoming terribly warm and fuzzy, with no apparent reason for the abrupt shifts (other than the playwright's whims).
The two adult male actors give the most mannered and affected performances I've seen in a long time; I don't know what is wrong with Frederick Weller's lungs and adenoids, but he talks like an 80-year-old man with emphysema, constantly fluttering his hands around (I suppose either because he doesn't know what to do with them, or he thinks that's what the gays do). Bobby Steggart, as usual, turns on the waterworks early, and rarely turns them off.
Tyne Daly turns in her usual adept sitcom performance - every line tossed off in her patented loud, flat, and nasal shout. But, compared to the two over-the-top men she acts with, her performance comes off as a model of understatement.
The audience was into it, however, ready to laugh at anything that was telegraphed as funny, and even several things that weren't. Applause was generously polite until Daly's call, when the obligatory stand happened.
"NOT A WORD of dialogue sounds like human speech. . .", "NOT A MOMENT is motivated by any sense of how people behave."
Your hyperbole has me laughing my head off. Human speech doesn't include words like "hello" or "no"? People don't sometimes pause when confronted with a statement that shocks them? Or smile when they are amused? Seriously?
It may not be my favorite script of the year, but come on now. Do you think you're going just a little bit overboard?
Can't seem to find this answer anywhere, do they state in the play how old the Bobby Steggert character is?
"Oh look at the time, three more intelligent plays just closed and THE ADDAMS FAMILY made another million dollars" -Jackie Hoffman, Broadway.com Audience Awards
I spent a good bit of the play trying to figure this out too. Somehow based on everything else they say about timelines and age differences, I came up with around 32. They mention at one point that there is a significant age difference (15 years maybe?) between the couple.
I believe Bud is supposed to be 6 or 7 (at least it seemed that way based on the Broadway casting), so Cal and Will have at least been together 7 or 8 years. I would hope they'd have been together at least 2 years before deciding to have a child, so let's say they've been together 10 years. (Maybe Cal says that at some point? I don't remember.)
So if Will is 32 now, that means he was 22 when he met Cal and only 24 when he decided to have a child, which is possible, but awfully young. I'd put them closer to 35 and 45.
I don't remember them specifically stating the age difference, just that there was a significant difference, and Cal says Will is of a younger generation, which to me means at least 10 years.
Nothing matters but knowing nothing matters. ~ Wicked
Everything in life is only for now. ~ Avenue Q
There is no future, there is no past. I live this moment as my last. ~ Rent