Georgia Engel, Christopher Abbott, Lois Smith
The new play by Pulitzer Prize-winner Annie Baker is a haunting, intense, surreal, and also demanding drama. It's likely to keep the discussion/argument about Baker's assiduous embrace of time and her empowering of vacant spaces. To some it's a commendable conceit. Others will finde "no there there."
Audiences for whom life on the stage is best served in fast forward, are likely to have a hard time with Baker's plays. However, the success of Circle Mirror Transformation and The Flick (currently enjoying an extended run downtown), confirmed Baker as a vital new dramatic voice. Her deliberately confined and delicately controlled writing style is refreshing, and in John contains bold flashes of magic realism with its disregard for the plausible. Her plays are certainly unlike any of her contemporaries. While some might see her the influence of Pinter, her pauses are distinctly Bakeresque and not copycat Pinteresque.
The story of John is partly illusive but also partly exactly what is played out in front of us. Yes, patience is required and the payoff is (curiously) telegraphed and no surprise, though in retrospect that hardly seems important.
A splendid cast under Sam Gold, Baker's director of choice are co-creators of a mood that will have you chortling one minute and sending shivers down your spine the next. Be prepared for a good many strange and unsettling events, all of which take place in Mertis's (Georgia Engle) Bed & Breakfast in the historic Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg where Jenny (Hong Chau) and her boy-friend of three years Elias (Christopher Abbott) have booked a room for the weekend while they visit the Civil War sites.To read the entire review please go to CurtainUp.com with this link.
No comments:
Post a Comment