Gothamist: Opinionist: Jack Goes Boating

Ken

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 02:36:05 -0500

Wow. Did the reviewer watch the same play that I did? Here are some hints: The "central" "crisis" or the play is "not" the "cooking scene" no matter how many unnecessary quotation marks you use. The central relationship is Clyde-Lucy, not Jack-Connie. And it's not driven by the kind of protagonist-overcomes-obstacles-to-achieve-goal plot that you seem to want (rent "Bad News Bears.") It's a funny, charming play about the ways in which people are fucked up -- think "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" The performances were endearing, and the I though the design was clever without being pointlessly too-clever. Sorry it wasn't bleak enough to be downtown-cool. I thought it was great.

jess L

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 23:57:21 -0500

i don't know what your talking about, the play was wonderful and touching. It was sweet and ssooo lovely in a total un-hollywood bullshit way. It was real, yo. I wasn't bored, it's a matter of having a watchful ear and eye for the details in the preformances and the superb, superb dialogue. Glaudini's script has a sense of humor true to much of the subway talk overheard in ny. I loved it.

Brooklyn Book Worm

Sun, 18 Mar 2007 23:36:21 -0500

This posting accurately describes the play, but fails to note the excruciating boredom it engenders. Or as a friend put it, "An amazing amount of time and talent has been given to a story in which the dog does not bark, with no significance at all." The play lacks any sort of dramatic tension -- the stuff that makes you wondering what will come next -- and depends on an exceptional cast to add depth to the four characters. Hoffman and Ortiz are amazing, as noted, and the women are terrific, too: Beth Cole rises the the challenge of making "ordinary" interesting and Daphne Ruben-Vega is constitutionally incapable of giving a boring performance; the stage lights up every time she appears. The cast boasts an impressive array of awards and nominations, all richly deserved. This is a production of the LAByrinth Theatre Company, founded by Ortiz and Hoffman as a "multi-cultural collective" dedicated to "reflecting the many voices of our New York community." Given this political agenda, the play was apparently chosen to "give voice" to blue-collar New Yorkers. But all it shows (as in the photo above) is why they need a giant hookah to find any pleasure in life. The audience is not offered a toke, alas and alack. P.S. to the litearal minded: a sign and the scent makes it clear that legal herbal cigarattes are smoked, not cannabis sativa.