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07-07-2004 10:30 PM |
Nate, great scans! Have you been able to find anyone with the Playbill? I'm interested to see that, especially since it's usually a portrait of Catherine on the cover.
That's a shame, Cher, it would have been a great experience. I think you would have enjoyed it. Kristi at TWOP did. :)
Quote:
Just got back from Liza's play. I saw it with my best friend Jocelyn, who went to school with Liza, and Joc's fiance was in Our Town with Liza in high school. All the stories I got were that Liza was "quiet" in high school, which some people thought was shyness, others snobbery. Joc once went to a "really nice party" at Liza's, and her childhood home was a converted barn that was "interesting," i.e. artistic.
Someone had a camera running in the back of the theater, so I wonder if they'll be selling tapes on the theater's website.
I'm dead tired and I have work in the morning, but I wanted to say a few things while they're still in my head. So, in no order, random thoughts:
Oh, SPOILERS, btw. If you're going to see it, don't read this.
- If you're seeing the play this weekend, go early. The entire theater from front to back is no more than 100 feet; the front row is about 6 feet from the stage. Joc and I were lucky to get the last two seats not on the edges.
- Liza amazing, of course. The rest of the cast was phenominal, too. The play wouldn't have been so good if the actors hadn't taken unique expressions of the text and the direction hadn't been a little unconventional (i.e., Catherine leaning against the wall turned away from the audience when she was depressed). Liza's dad, a little less so, but it kinda fit the character that he was a little over-the-top and awkward; mathmaticians are spazzes. :)
- Loved the parallels. I can't remember specifics, just that I loved how the themes seemed to spiral and return bigger and more important.
- LOVED the boyfriend. Get it? He's a drummer with bad timing? Hee! Loved that he was an important character regardless of him being "the boyfriend." Loved the kind of guy he was, like Rory's Marty or Lane's Dave. The whole play, I was thinking, "This guy should be Rory's new boyfriend in S5."
- Loved how she and the boyfriend were complimentary. He talked, she sulked; he expressed his feelings outwardly, she pulled hers inside; he's positive, she's negative; in the end scene, he's wearing a green top and black bottoms, and her clothes are opposite. His timing wasn't bad, just out of synch. At the end, the suggestion is that they'll be perfect as collaborators because they compliment each other.
- SO MAD I forgot a camera!!! I totally could've taken a pic of the set before it started. Loved the set, tho. Since the whole play takes place on a porch, and the set is so simplistic, it would've been easy for the set to be the play's undoing. Instead, it's vibrantly realistic in its drabness, down to the water stains and tread-worn floorboards.
- Loved the twists. When she was talking about Sophie the lady mathmatician, I thought she was thinking "I don't measure up" or something, not that Sophie was sorta her mentor. I think when Catherine was talking about those primes, and said that such-and-such was the "highest one known," she didnt' mean "the highest one I read in a book," but, "the highest one I've figured out."
- Why was 33.3 Catherine's favorite number? It nagged me that it seemed like that was important. 3 members of the family? Doing things only 1/3 of the way? If she was in school for 3 months, that's 1/3 of the school year... <shrug>
- Loved all the math. I've always loved math, the way it has secrets and mystery and can tell a story. I was never good at it, but I always loved learning it. Proofs always amazed me: you can theoreitcally prove anything, if you come up with the right expressions.
- Loved that Catherine, Hal, and Robert talked in proofs, which is why their conversations were so cyclical and difficult, and ultimatly not accurate to complicated things like human beings. Loved towards the end, when Hal starts to refute something Claire said using proof logic, and Claire broke through it by using real-world logic.
- Loved opening the second act with the flashback, and the juxtaposition of snapping back to the real world. Adored the actors for slipping so well into their present-time personalities.
- Loved that the sister wasn't shallow or manipulative, or evil just because she disagreed with the protagonist. Even though Claire was wrong about her Catherine, her feelings were understandable and justified.
-Only nit: sometimes it felt a little over-the-top with the melodrama, but that's a convention of the genra; I'm used to tv, where reactions and feelings are stretched out over 9 months, but a play has 2 hours to say what it wants to say.
- At the end, when Catherine was hurt that Hal doubted that she'd written the proof, I was thinking, "You're asking for blind faith from a scientist?" But that was the point - it was *human* for her to feel that way.
- Loved the musical cues.
- Loved the "broadway... skaters at Rockafeller center... museums" bit. Heee!
- Loved that the last line of the play was "Unless..."
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