Summer Fare

This summer I was lazy when it came to theater, both going and then writing about it. However, I didn't not do anything. I saw three Broadway plays that I never wrote up. They've all closed, but I do want to add them before I completely forget about them.

Frost Nixon

This was the best of the three, not surprisingly. In fact, this will probably make the top five of the year. It was as good as everyone said. Not only was it a history lesson for someone born in the mid-70s, it was simply good theater.

The story is rather simple. David Frost, a playboy television host in decline, proposes to interview Nixon after Watergate. Nixon has not given any real interviews up to this point or talked about Watergate. He surprisingly accepts the interview to defend his honor and because David Frost (as opposed to Mike Wallace) might be much easier to deal with.

The play sets up well the real surprise of the interview, that Frost does actually win in the interview with Nixon.

While the play was praised and lauded I thought Frank Langella was a bit overpraised and Michael Sheen a bit underpraised. I think it was my age that gave me a different take on what many others saw. I was too young to see Watergate unfold on TV or see Nixon talk on television. So, his mannerisms and tics were actually unknown to me. For this reason, while Frank Langella may have nailed the mannerisms and tics--to me it looked like he was doing a bit of a caricature. I think if I had been older I would have been blown away, but it looked a little SNL to me.

While I never saw the Frost Nixon interview before this in any form, I was familiar with its outcome and I had read some of the Dean book. (Don't worry America, all those tax dollars for education were not for naught). Michael Sheen hit it out of the park. He was utterly convincing as a real, human character--as Frost.

Other than that, I don't think I saw much that no one else saw. It could only be summed up in two words: good theater. Leaving the theater, I knew I had seen theater as good as it gets. That was worth the price of admission and then some.

Deuce

This was the second best of the summer three. Generally not adored by the critics, and yet I'm definitely not sorry I saw it. Murder She Wrote was a common fixture on TV while growing up, but I didn't watch it, so I had no idea that Angela Lansbury is actually an amazing actress.

In fact, what made the whole evening completely worth it was her impeccable sense of comedic timing. I know...Angela Lansbury, who knew? Well, someone surely knew and made me wish she had been doing comedy all of these years. She is an amazing professional actress and it was an absolute delight to see her on stage.

The play is about tennis doubles partners who had been very good and famous (doubles partners, famous, really?) who are invited to the U.S. Open to be recognized and remembered for a moment. They sit and watch a match and talk about the way things used to be and the way they are now. The name of the play derives from the relationship the two women have. Neither of them have ever been able to get a lasting advantage over the other. Because of this, because they are constantly locked in something of a battle, neither of them can be too vulnerable for more than a minute. It's a delicate, finely tuned and balanced relationship that never was able to make its way out of deuce into a rich friendship. No winners, no losers.

While not rich, it was enjoyable. Being a tennis fan, it was good enough. To see Angela Lansbury was a treat I won't quickly forget, though.

Old Acquaintance

This was early in the summer and this may have been better as an Off-Broadway play than in a big theater where the actresses felt they had to project, or rather over-project so much of the time.

This was a story of two old friends, who are best friends and rivals. Add to that a daughter and a young man who serves as a romantic interest for two of the female characters.

I've seen all three female leads in other plays around town. And, in all of the other three plays they were stand-outs and much better than they were here. I can only assume this means that the direction was the key to the problem in this play. All three were capable of giving more nuanced and better performances, and I know that to be a fact not a hypothetical projection.

The sets were beautiful and they may have been the star of the show. Psychologically, it was interesting enough. The dialogue wasn't perfectly clean, though. There were a few too many ideas, a few too many words to be clean. In fact, that may have just described the entire experience. It was a little too much of everything. And, forgettable, at that.