Why no reviews for Gloria?

[journeysend]

Posted: 6/16/15 at 7:33pm

It opened last night yet the only review online is from AMNY and it won't even open! 

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 6/17/15 at 9:41am

The official opening must be different than the press opening. I don't know when that is, though.

[JayG 2]

Posted: 6/17/15 at 10:39am

I ultimately liked Gloria after sitting through most of act one with an insufferable bunch of 20-something obnoxious characters. I saw the play as an indictment of that generation. In fact the entire play is a devastating look at a self obsessed generation. For that reason the play held me. Therefore, in spite of its ( mostly) despicable characters, it takes some interesting twists and makes some valid points about a generation that has been given trophies for showing up on a ball field  or pooping in a toilet. 

While watching Gloria, I wondered why so many of today's 20-30 year playwrights can only write about their generation and their boring problems. (The Spoils is another example.) I'm really tired of hearing whiny young people on stage. Miller wrote Willy Loman in his 30s. Williams wrote Amanda Wingfield in his 30s. O'Neill always wrote about adults because kids are just not that interesting. (One character in GLORIA is 26 and writing his memoirs. That had be be a joke, but no one took it that way. )Why can't today's young playwrights get past their generation's own self importance and create people whose problems deal with something other than some 20-something's wounded sense of entitlement. 

 

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/17/15 at 10:54am

You must be a Baby Boomer. 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 6/17/15 at 10:58am

^wow, just wow.

Setting aside the whole "write what you know" thing, how could you possibly pass judgment on an entire generation if you were not exposed to their doings by a play?

There is obviously a boatload of reverse-ageist pathology in your comments, not to mention contradiction (you ultimately liked it), but I would suggest that there is no aspect of the human condition that is inherently uninteresting. Uninteresting plays, sure; uninteresting generations, sorry, no. And if you found this people uninteresting, look within. (That's not to suggest you need to change, just that a bit of self-awareness might be in order.)

[JPeterman]

Posted: 6/17/15 at 11:01am

I think the official opening is June 29, so there may not be any reviews unti then.

[newintown]

Posted: 6/17/15 at 11:08am

I think there has been a noticeable (not necessarily linear) paradigm shift in the treatment of adolescents and young 20-somethings in popular entertainment from the 50s to today, shifting from the simplicity of Andy Hardy, Dobie Gillis, and Gidget to the angst of Rebel Without a Cause and Easy Rider (although those guys didn't seem particularly young...) to the unearned faux sophistication and jadedness of Sixteen Candles, Buffy, Juno and their ilk.

And the age of the midlife crisis seems to have lowered as well, from the 40s or 50s (as it was usually portrayed mid-20th-century) to the mid-20s/early 30s often now.

Perhaps it was once thought that you had to have more life experience under your belt before you were dramatically interesting? Imagine a version of FOLLIES with a group of 25-year-olds revisiting the high school where they had performed and had dreams that didn't come true. Some would love that, others would roll their eyes. Both would be valid responses.

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 6/17/15 at 11:20am

According to this Playbill piece, it opens tonight, so that's when the reviews will be.

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/in-the-heights-and-fortress-of-solitude-star-heads-cast-of-gloria-opening-tonight-351453

[journeysend]

Posted: 6/17/15 at 11:59am

Jay G2, I think your comments are ridiculous, what one might call "reverse agism." Even more, it is inaccurate. Was Brandon-Jacob's An Octoroon or Appropriate solely about 20-30 year olds? No, and if they were, it wouldn't matter. 

Go see revivals or plays by older playwrights if you don't have interest in millennials.  

 

 

 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 6/17/15 at 12:03pm

@newintown, 

I do think there is a shift, and I think it is understandable. In the 50s, 20-somethings had no reason to enter crisis mode of any age-life's path was fairly straightforward for most, and the decade was relatively carefree. Today it is the parents who are carefree, and the kids are left with the struggle.

The boomer kids grew up, and their kids (and grandkids) have a tougher road. Jobs are no longer a given, and there are conflicted messages being sent.  GWB is/was the quintessential representation of this disingenuousness that is the operator on the cranky nihilism that marks a sizable chunk of the zeitgeist. This play is a successor of sorts to the sensibility of American Idiot, which perhaps captured the mindset in music better than any other artistic expression of it. 

The dynamic seems to be shifting again right now. Put on your seat belt.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 7/4/15 at 2:43pm

My review:  This play is f**king amazing and you should grab a ticket while you can.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 3/2/17 at 1:42pm

I caught the Goodman production of Gloria (basically a full transfer of the Vineyard production, including the cast) during its final weekend and was really surprised at how little mention there was of the Vineyard production.  I went in with virtually no knowledge of the show other than it being something of a dark comedy regarding an office environment.  HOLY COW.  I guess I was sucked in by the characters of the first act because I did NOT see the event at the end of the first act coming at all.  The reaction from the audience was unforgettable.  I was severely shaken throughout intermission, but curious to see how it would continue from that point.  

I thought the play was a rather masterful exploration on how trauma affects us and represented a rather interesting and plausible theory.  Perhaps the script has gone through some material revision because I don't understand how it could simply be seen as an indictment of Millennials.  Yes, there are a couple of twentysomethings who are unlikable, but the rather selfish and unethical (or arguably immoral) behavior wasn't strictly limited to the characters of that generation.  The second and third acts made it pretty clear that it wasn't about ageism or an indictment stereotyping an entire generation.  The play was really about a lot of things, but I really didn't see it being about that from the Goodman production.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/2/17 at 5:09pm

I have no problem with young people writing about their own age group, but I would like a moratorium on people under thirty winning awards and crying, "I've been waiting for this MY WHOLE LIFE!"

Literally true, perhaps, but have a little perspective.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 3/3/17 at 10:15am

More often than not, they are just trying to think of something dramatic to say, but lack imagination or originality.

[MrsSallyAdams]

Posted: 3/3/17 at 10:37am

Off topic but I enjoy how McCraney and Jenkins portrayed unhappy young people in Moonlight. The actors who played Chiron as a child and teen were mostly silent and the actors suggested a well of fear and rage boiling under the surface. It made it easy for the audience to sympathize with them in a way you aren't supposed to with Gloria's whiny corporate drones.