The Publishing Contrarian

I’ve got a thing for the actor Brian Dennehy. No, not like the thing I have for Alec Baldwin. This is different. Alex Baldwin makes me laugh, too, but Dennehy brings out the Irish in me, just like the sound of The Chieftains and a penny whistle do. So when I heard he was starring in Eugene ONeill’s Desire Under the Elms at the St. James Theatre on Broadway, off I went.

Unfortunately, I did not have a good time. Not at all. My problems started when the audience was packed in like sardines into too narrow seats and too tight rows. I felt straight-jacketed. I couldn’t move an inch. I fell into an even uglier mood about twenty-minutes into the play when a woman seated a few seats to the right of me in the row in front of me actually pulled out her cell phone, opened it up, and began to whisper-chat — until the man sitting directly behind her rapped her on the shoulder and told her to HANG UP. (More about that later because it got ugly as the audience stood up at the end of the play.) So maybe this play just got off to a bad start with me . . . or maybe not.

Lose the Maine Accent, PLEASE!

Desire Under the Elms takes place somewhere in New England. I vote Maine because I couldn’t understand half of what the actors were saying due to their heavy Down Easter accent. Charming in the Pine Tree State, no doubt, but not good on the New York stage. Could the director, Robert Falls, please fix that?

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I’m on a theater binge: God of Carnage last week and Reasons to be Pretty and Mary Stuart this week. Two out of three were terrific, but Reasons to be Pretty was such a slam against blue-collar workers that this white-collar girl, sitting in the midst of an audience of white-collar workers, was embarrassed. The play was billed as an examination of America’s obsession with physical beauty and a funny/dark coming-of-age tale.  You could have fooled me.

Wow, I’d love to see that play. Too bad I didn’t.

That’s why I was so disappointed in Neil Labute’s play in spite of its original theme about how Steph (a hairdresser) would handle being blindsided by the knowledge that her boyfriend (a frozen foods employee) really doesn’t find her particularly good looking.

It’s Not OK for White Collar Playwrights to Dis Blue-Collar Workers

Some of the best, most dependable guys I know are blue-collar, hands-on workers. Who ya gonna count on when your car is buried in a snow bank at two in the morning and you need somebody to haul your sorry you-know-what out of there? Who ya gonna count on when the toilet tank breaks and water is pouring through the ceiling? Who ya gonna count on when you need someone who can MITER? (Oh, yes, I know, YOU can miter!) Well, you get the idea.

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