I find it sad that I’m already showered, shaved and dressed to go to the theater when the play doesn’t start until 7:00. It’s currently 11:30.
But we are (me and the other half) going to see a new play called The Roommate with Mia Farrow and Patti Lupone. You don’t want to be late for Patti Lupone cuz she’ll turn on you quicker than Kanye. Very good friends of ours got us the tickets as a wedding gift. Etiquette dictates you have one year to offer a gift, so they just made it.
Now get this. The play is one and a half hours long with no intermission, so that’s 7:00 to 8:30. We’re sitting in the second row orchestra and the seats cost $250 a piece. That’s nuts right? But I mean it’s Mia Farrow and Patti Lupone. You get what you pay for they say.
I haven’t done anything social in a long time. When we lived in the city I’d walk to the theater district and find a scalper. I saw a lot of stuff. Now you have to be really certain it’s gonna be a smash hit first. This promises to be one. And it’s only running eight weeks. It floors me thinking about the amount of preparation for something that’ll last such a short time. The preparation to protect the sanctity of the theater. It’s rare that you ever see anyone break character or stammer or miss their mark on the stage. I guess it requires months of preparation for just 90 minutes.
There was a play several years ago, a one woman show starring Vanessa Redgrave sitting on a bench on a bare stage. It was called The Year of Magical Thinking based on the book written by Joan Didion. Just her. Reciting a very long soliloquy. No breaks. No recovery time and if she missed a line or was distracted it could be disastrous. Well the night I saw her she was interrupted by a man who not only didn’t turn his cell off but answered the call and commenced to talk. Vanessa Redgrave was not pleased. The guy was removed by an usher and then she had to backtrack a few minutes to get her delivery back in sync.
A one man play called I Am My Own Wife where one actor plays thirty characters that dialogue with each other, and you completely believe there’s thirty people on the stage. Needless to say there was no understudy for the actor. I mean who else could do that?
There was August, Osage County. A three and a half hour play that flew by. Eighteen characters and multiple conversations happening at the same time in different rooms and you completely followed it. Brilliant. The set was a frame of a three story house with ten rooms containing many different and simultaneous scenes. You couldn’t possibly be off of the pace of the dialogue as it would turn four other conversations in other rooms into a jumbled mess.
So many others. Jane Fonda. Julianne Moore. Tyne Daly. Zoe Caldwell. Angela Lansbury and Marian Seldes in two chairs recalling their career as a women’s doubles tennis team. I know for most the musical is the thing, but if you ever want to see the real acting craft in action, hit a play. And it’s gotta be a studied craft and here’s my proof. Poor Julia Roberts tried her hand at Broadway. The lead up to her opening night was out of control. Everyone wanted to see it. And she apparently was simply god awful, to the point that she looked impish delivering her lines as she knew she was horrible. She’d cringe. She couldn’t do it. Not everyone can.
But I’m in good hands tonight with Mia and Patti. Legends, professionals, tested and true.
Can’t wait. (Obviously as I’m already dressed.)