harder better faster stronger?

[Scott Kraft]

I have to agree with Chris on this. The staging of the play had lots to say for it. But the movie, even on the small screen, conveyed a depth to the narrative that wasn't apparent on stage. And really couldn't be. The play's appeal lay in it baring of realities that weren't widely known or understood. The TV movie demonstrated the confounding frailty of human experience in our extremely turbulent times.

 

[John McIlwain]

originally posted by David M. Bueker:
I'm still trying to purge the alcoholic burn from an 18.3% alcohol Australian Merlot I had about 4 years ago. Thank God we got a limo to that dinner.

Mmmmmmm... the Merlot that drinks like a Scotch!

 

[Jay Miller]

originally posted by Scott Kraft:
I have to agree with Chris on this. The staging of the play had lots to say for it. But the movie, even on the small screen, conveyed a depth to the narrative that wasn't apparent on stage. And really couldn't be. The play's appeal lay in it baring of realities that weren't widely known or understood. The TV movie demonstrated the confounding frailty of human experience in our extremely turbulent times.

Grumble, grumble. Okay, I'll go rent it or something and give it another chance. If Chris can keep trying Sherry I guess it's the least I can do.

I think a lot of it is that Spinella, Mantello, Chalfant et al are burned into my brain and I looked on any change in interpretation as heresy.

Of course I'll agree that the movie may age better than the play. Some of it's impact was just amazement at all the of things that were appearing on stage. And references like Perestroika had a resonance then which has faded with the years.

 

[Chris Coad]

And references like Perestroika had a resonance then which has faded with the years.

When the movie first came out I wasn't really looking forward to it, as plays with 'political' themes tend to be very much of their time, for up-front consumption, not for aging, and trying to recreate that theme years or decades later in a different cultural climate does no one any favors. Go see something by Clifford Odets, for example, and you'll often find yourself scratching your head and thinking 'This was revolutionary? THIS?' Not at all the case herethe slight dialing-back of some of the immediacy of the political themes merely allowed the (mostly) human drama to blossom even further.

Plus, you know, Mary-Louise Parker.

 

[Thor]

*dreamy sigh*

Wasn't it you who claimed you'd pay to watch her read the phone book?

 

[VLM]

originally posted by Thor:

Oh no,how could I forget?

I was surprised, but it was a pretty vague reference. But that monologue...I can't watch it (live or on screen), I can't read it, I can't even think about it, without getting choked up. Someday, when I grow up, I hope to write just one paragraph that's that good. Just one.

but Mary-Louise Parker always makes me tear up.

Um, so I watched that monologue. Do you all really think it is that good?

I feel like I'm missing something.

 

[VLM]

originally posted by Scott Kraft:
I have to agree with Chris on this. The staging of the play had lots to say for it. But the movie, even on the small screen, conveyed a depth to the narrative that wasn't apparent on stage. And really couldn't be. The play's appeal lay in it baring of realities that weren't widely known or understood. The TV movie demonstrated the confounding frailty of human experience in our extremely turbulent times.

Hmm. OK. You make it sound so great. I guess maybe I should try it out.

I'm not much of a theatre person, or even a particularly literate person, so maybe this just goes over my head, or beside it.

 

[Thor]

Um, so I watched that monologue. Do you all really think it is that good?

I don't think it means much without watching everything that preceded it. It's the penultimate scene in the play, and it directly relates to her opening monologue, which comes right at the beginning of the play. But yes, I do think it's that good.

 

[Chris Coad]

originally posted by Thor:
*dreamy sigh*

Wasn't it you who claimed you'd pay to watch her read the phone book?

That was me. Is she finally doing it? Is it on TicketMaster?

 

[Thor]

I suppose we could take up a collection.

 

[Steve Edmunds]

originally posted by Thor:
I suppose we could take up a collection.

Could just call a collection agency...

 

[Chris Coad]

originally posted by VLM:

originally posted by Thor:

Oh no,how could I forget?

I was surprised, but it was a pretty vague reference. But that monologue...I can't watch it (live or on screen), I can't read it, I can't even think about it, without getting choked up. Someday, when I grow up, I hope to write just one paragraph that's that good. Just one.

but Mary-Louise Parker always makes me tear up.

Um, so I watched that monologue. Do you all really think it is that good?

I feel like I'm missing something.

What Thor said. You're missing the six hours of setup material that led up to that pointwho she is, what she's been through, the reason she's sitting on the plane, and why healing is something she might have a few thoughts about.

I think it's sublime. But of course, as with all things artsy, it simply might not be your bag.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

Where does one pick up those points for pedantry and literary/philosophical allusions? Do they buy things?

I preferred the play too. It's not this actor vs. that one though I was not taken by Al Pacino as Roy Cohn and I loved Marcia Gay Hardin in the MLP role. But really theater owns you in a way television does not and that play is meant to own you, not be watched from the control one possesses watching TV, especially on tape or DVD.

 

[Thor]

Yes, but you have to paste them in a book like green stamps, and few have the time or patience to do that these days.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

Agree with JL: the play was riveting, the appearance of the angel stunning, the Mormon mother pathetic and terrifying, on and on and on.

Pressing "pause" so someone can run to the kitchen for popcorn kinda spoils it.

 

[Chris Coad]

So don't press pause. I didn't.

 

[Thor]

I admit I don't really get the criticism either. We watched more or less to the end of what was Millennium Approaches, took a break, then came back and watched what would have been Perestroika...though admittedly it was only an hour's break, not a whole bunch of months while we waited (impatiently) for Kushner to finish the second part.

Saying that the ability to hit pause diminishes the production doesn't exactly sound like a criticism of the production, it seems like a criticism of the imagined audience, or maybe the technology. Nor does it seem particularly relevant. Criticize the performances (I wasn't enamored of Thompson's interpretation either), or the direction, or Kushner's edits, or whatever, but criticizing the functions of a DVD player as if they're a function of the production is a little weak.

 

[Chris Coad]

One might just as easily say "Yeah, but I had obstructed seats at the play," or "The guy next to me wouldn't stop crinkling his candy the whole time, so I couldn't get into it. If only I were in my nice quiet ***********."

As to Emma Thompson, my feeling is that she's a pro's pro and could give you any reading you asked for. My misgivings about her particular character were more on the directorial level, choice of tonal interpretation, going for immediate laughs instead of playing the angel straight. But I found some of Prior's material better played for wry humor instead of straight angst, so it's a very fine line, hard to be judgey there.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

Reducing the difference between theater and TV/DVD to the ability to hit pause (though that is significant whether you use it or not)I think diminishes the real difference between one's experience of the two media--or at least my experience of them. I can't be suitably empirical about this but I found the play insufficiently transformed, still searching for an analogous effect instead of a different route to the same thing (we'll be back to the issue of translation in a moment here). But since I don't begrudge others their preferences, nor would I for a moment say that the HBO production was somehow bad, as opposed to just not as affecting for me, I doubt I could defend my position with sufficient vociferousness.

 

[Thor]

As to Emma Thompson, my feeling is that she's a pro's pro and could give you any reading you asked for.

True, but it's not as if Kushner was uninvolved; if he didn't like it, I suppose he could have whispered something, and he didn't. Presumably like you, I had Kushner's preface note in mind...the one where he indicates the angel should be terrifying and awe-inspiring at all times, or whatver it is he says (I'm too lazy to run upstairs and get the book to see the exact wording). Thompson's angel wasn't that, and -- heresy, I suppose -- I think that in the hospital scene, Streep eliminated any chance of her being either by Streep's (for me) similarly campy performance. And yeah, some of it was the direction, too: by playing the effects the way he did (and here I guess he stuck to Kushner's original intent, though that was for the stage and not for Hollywood), Nichols made it harder to concentrate on the performance. I guess for me, the difference was that unlike most of the rest of the cast, I felt I was watching her Act™. Not all the time, but some of the time.

I found some of Prior's material better played for wry humor instead of straight angst

In the version I saw, that was more the tone taken by the actor, so the HBO performance seemed familiar to me in this regard. Though a lot quieter, obviously.

I found the play insufficiently transformed

You know, as in Chris' example I did have crappy seats the first time I saw Perestroika (though not M.A.), and I think that has something to do with how I responded to the intimacy of the HBO version.

I think, though, that the play has such a gut-slamming initial impact that it's almost impossible to recreate that, no matter the medium. I also think it's tied to it's time in ways that aren't so easily disentangled. But we've covered all this already.