“I happen to know that God is alive and well and living in Gary, Indiana. He’s a black steelworker with seven kids who works the night shift pouring o“I happen to know that God is alive and well and living in Gary, Indiana. He’s a black steelworker with seven kids who works the night shift pouring off slag.�
Mean, caustic, hilarious. Eric Bogosian wrote some delicious, DELICIOUS monologues. You can just chew on those words. Truly so many awesome, vicious monologues.
“Lemme put it this way, Barry Champlain is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.�
Inspired to read because my friend and old roommate Steve took an acting class after I started � he was also inspired by my decision and wanted to give it a gander. He told me he prepared a monologue from this play; I wasn’t familiar, but with a gift card to the Drama Book Shop that he gave me for Christmas, I picked up a Bogosian collection as a sort-of homage.
“I’ll bet you’re really an actor or something, right? I’m always fascinated by people with goals.�
Enjoyed reading this. Distinct characters who are ju“I’ll bet you’re really an actor or something, right? I’m always fascinated by people with goals.�
Enjoyed reading this. Distinct characters who are just bored enough to try and do something a little reckless. My goodness, the fallout from this is kinda messy.
I'm reading some plays that my classmates were casted in for rehearsal projects. Wow, it’d be a lot of fun to be Matty. Insane dialogue from his character, and I can’t wait to watch Camillo get into it.
“Tell me you’re not really going to be a priest.� “I promise to not be a good one.�
The non-linear progression of the story � a choice! And yeah, pretty interesting. Feels quite conducive to be filmed; does this exist as a film? Could be excellent for a film.
The dialogue is the best part. It’s actually quite funny.
“I’m not going to settle for some mindless drudgery just to be comfortable.� “So you’ll go on letting mommy pay the bills?� “Artists have always been supported.� “You’re not an artist.� “I have the temperament.�...more
“Being a playwright, darling? A playwright? Acting isn’t demoralizing enough, you choose playwriting?�
Read this play twice this weekend. Jumping from “Being a playwright, darling? A playwright? Acting isn’t demoralizing enough, you choose playwriting?�
Read this play twice this weekend. Jumping from being nineteen years old in This is Our Youth in my Scene Study class to being sixty-six years old with a bum knee in this play for my spring rehearsal project. First time we’ll be working on a full-length production at Stella, and I’m very excited to get to work with my cast and director! Think we have a good group, genuinely.
At my core, I relate the most to Elliot. He has this air of bitterness and sadness to him that’s me on my worst days (but I won’t lie, there’s at least a moment every day where I embody Elliot, lmao). But he’s such a great character and you want to give him a hug. Of course, Anna, is such a marvelous character.
“Do you think it’s easy telling your child the truth? Do you? Shall I pretend your play was a work of genius? Is that what you want? Lies? I can lie; I pretend for a living. Marvelous! Absolutely brilliant! All it was, was a childish attempt to get back at me! To embarrass me!�
Frankly, all of the characters in this play are much older than us actors playing them. We’re all in our 20s (I’m the oldest actor at the senior-citizen age of 29 years old), but we’re playing 70, 66, three of us are in our 40s, and then of course Juliana gets to play 21.
You can tell the Chekhov influence right off the jump! The arc and the yearning and the fact that everyone’s an artist (or related to one). All the jokes on actors. It’s inside baseball, this play, but it’s fun. There’s much to mine, and I'm excited to approach as an actor.
Desire is the root of all suffering. This play supports this 100% valid claim. These strange happenings that we have no control over, and the ways we’re inextricably attached to each other, no matter how disjointed and dysfunctional. Family will disappoint you time and time again. And love shows and reveals itself in the weirdest of ways sometimes.
But we gotta keep going.
I’m gonna read this a few more times, obviously, and then I’ll be acting in it for four performances in May. God, I hope I can be convincing as Walter. But like Walter’s resolve in the third act when he tells Elliot “what he really thinks,� I believe I’ll have to just decide to be Walter, and choose to believe that my choices are the right ones. It's taken him 66+ years to get somewhere near this resolve; maybe driving the Porsche softens the blow of whatever emptiness he feels inside. But he found Nell. We choose what we want to believe, sometimes. The pain doesn't leave you.
“What should I regret? The work on stage I didn’t do? Not a chance. Starvation is not a virtue.�...more
“Spend a lifetime with them and you might get a moment of insight into their pain� until then, allow them their grandeur in silence.�
A genius play. Th“Spend a lifetime with them and you might get a moment of insight into their pain� until then, allow them their grandeur in silence.�
A genius play. Thank you to Fran, who told me I should read this and said, “you’d be a good Ken.� And I’m flattered, but also, the role does seem suited for me, if I may say so myself: I’m definitely going to add his last monologue to my arsenal � it’s so dang good!
“You know, not everything has to be so goddamn IMPORTANT all the time! Not every painting has to rip your guts out and expose your soul! Not everyone wants art that actually HURTS! Sometimes you just want a fucking still life or landscape or soup can or comic book! Which you might learn if you ever actually left your goddamn hermetically-sealed submarine here with all the windows closed and no natural light � BECAUSE NATURAL LIGHT ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU!�
Never have I stopped to write down more lines or quotes than this play, I think. The dialogue is so good, and the sentiments so profound. Rothko is such an interesting man; a true “artist� for all the good and the bad that entails.
“I AM HERE TO STOP YOUR HEART, YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?! I AM HERE TO MAKE YOU THINK! I AM NOT HERE TO MAKE PRETTY PICTURES!�
Like the ideas they discuss from Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, two things can be true, and opposing ideas and practices can still be inextricably linked. I agreed with Rothko, I agreed with Ken. Both are usually right, in a way.
“All my life I wanted just this, my friend: to create a place� A place where the viewer could live in contemplation with the work and give it some of the same attention and care I gave it. Like a chapel� A place of communion.� “But� it’s a restaurant.� “No� I will make it a temple.�
Ugh. So good! There's so much to say, but all I'll tell you is: read the play. I'd love to watch a staging of it -- can only imagine how beautiful the lighting design can be; and the whole conceit of watching the actors stare right into the audience (where we suspend our disbelief that they are looking at whatever current painting that Rothko is working on) would be so tremendous. Seeing how they're stirred looking at these paintings, but we get to see it. We're the painting -- the audience. I'd love to see that, and I'd also love to help that creation.
“How do you know when it’s done?� “There’s tragedy in every brush stroke.�...more
“Doubt requires more courage than conviction does, and more energy; because conviction is a resting place and doubt is infinite—it is a passionate exe“Doubt requires more courage than conviction does, and more energy; because conviction is a resting place and doubt is infinite—it is a passionate exercise.�
I knew from reading John Patrick Shanley’s introduction to the play, which I included an excerpt of above, that I was in for a real treat. Had been meaning to watch the film for a long time now, but in a way, I’m glad this was my introduction to the work. The ideas are right there, and just READING the play, and creating voices in my head � it adds to this layer of doubt.
“If I could, Sister James, I would certainly choose to live in innocence. But innocence can only be wisdom in a world without evil. Situations arise and we are confronted with wrongdoing and the need to act.�
If I heard Father Flynn explain his side, or if I heard the conviction from Sister Aloysius, maybe I’d be like Sister James and be so easily swayed. I’m left with this interesting layer of doubt � this Catholic guilt and doubt that I already possess.
Wonderfully-written. As a bonus, this play is actually quite funny. I read this entire play at a coffeeshop earlier today and let out a few good chuckles. Some satisfying bits with bloody noses, blindness, and coworker nonsense (even if they’re all nuns � we’re all only human and not divine nor immaculate).
The last couple scenes � the Mrs. Muller meeting� wow. I gasped at a reveal, which I guess is how we’re supposed to react. You think you know, you think you know. There’s layers and nuance to all of this. A lot to chew on, genuinely.
“When you take a step to address wrongdoing, you are taking a step away from God, but in His service.�
Loved reading that the original cast of the show said in interviews that the second act starts when the audience leaves the theater. This was so quick to read, and I saw that it translates to about 90 minutes of theater. Makes a lot of sense! Father Flynn’s sermons can take awhile; and boy, I’m sure there are a lot of meaningful pregnant pauses. Wow. Great stuff.
Father Flynn would be a difficult character to play� but I’d love to do it. I know it takes place in the 1960s, but hey, the next Pope might be Filipino! And I was born in the Bronx. Maybe we can manifest this for a revival in 20-25 years....more
“This morning I watched one of my patients die before my eyes.� “But you’re not a doctor, Ivan.� “Then I am all the guiltier. Oh, Alyosha, how can you l“This morning I watched one of my patients die before my eyes.� “But you’re not a doctor, Ivan.� “Then I am all the guiltier. Oh, Alyosha, how can you look at this barren untranslatable Russian idiom around us, and still believe in God?�
With my fairly pedestrian and elementary knowledge of Russian Drama and literature (and let’s face it, it’s really just purely Russian Drama at this point), I can say I thoroughly enjoyed this irreverent, nonsensical play spoofing so much from Russian art as well as just contemporary Western art as well.
Laughed a lot while reading. Would imagine a lot of great bits are visual � Constance during her long, strange translations of scenes from Russian to English, and the ‘yes, and� that seems to play out with the characters she’s telling stories of but changing circumstances (from “whorehouse� to “warehouse�).
Mary Tyrone Karamazov killed me. Mary’s already ‘not there� at times in Long Day’s Journey Into Night, but how she’s used in this play, just deliriously referring to her sons as characters from a completely different play� a wonderful bit. Got me every time.
“Mama, I’m going to be a pop star!� “Edmund, stop saying that! It’s just a summer cold!�
My first Durang. He won the Tony for Best Play with Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, and I feel like I’ll visit the play quite soon. Beyond Therapy I’d love to read next and will do it soon. He’s from New Jersey! I can hear it with the dialogue. Feels so New Jerseyan....more
“Well, you see, there are some people whom one loves, and others whom it’s almost more fun to be with.�
Torvald is not John Proctor. Torvald is in fact“Well, you see, there are some people whom one loves, and others whom it’s almost more fun to be with.�
Torvald is not John Proctor. Torvald is in fact Reverend Parris.
Urgent and all-encompassing; I can imagine the immense ripples this play had when it originally premiered in the late 1800s. The sacredness of marriage held under a microscope; the agency of women, or at the very least, an examination of how their voices are silenced by the men in their lives.
“I know what despair can drive a man like you to.�
Some wonderful exchanges of dialogue and some iconic monologues. Nora is one of the best characters of the form.
The secondary plot of Mrs. Linde and Krogstad had some of my favorite sentiments and wonderfully counterbalances the suffocation of Nora and Torvald’s dollhouse relationship.
“I must work if I’m to find life worth living. I’ve always worked, for as long as I can remember. It’s been the greatest joy of my life � my only joy. But now I’m alone in the world, and I feel so dreadfully lost and empty. There’s no joy in working just for oneself. Oh, Nils, give me something � someone � to work for.�
I got a used copy from the Strand Book Store. But I didn’t even consider that maybe I should’ve held out for the Amy Herzog version. Alas, I can always visit that one later.
Wonderful, essential text. Torvald’s bipolar and honor-driven monologues in Act III are quite great; his character is ‘justified� because of his flawed worldviews and societal expectations; can absolutely imagine Arian Moayed KILLING this role. And it goes without saying that Jessica Chastain was undoubtedly marvelous as Nora....more
Reading this right after Waiting for Godot, lord. Waiting for the end to come�
“Don’t you see?! We’re actors - “Do you like being� an actor?� “No, sir.�
Reading this right after Waiting for Godot, lord. Waiting for the end to come�
“Don’t you see?! We’re actors - we’re the opposite of people!�
This one I found funnier than Waiting for Godot, and I do appreciate how it extends the life (but in a way, offering zero new information about them) of Hamlet’s “friends� Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Their quest is nonsensical and devoid of meaning without Hamlet himself. Their entire purpose is for Hamlet. And the way they get written off by Shakespeare in the original text, well� we need to know what could have been going through their heads on that boat ride to England.
Absurd, funny, and quite sad. Its musings on life, on art, on the futile exercise of acting, on what’s “real� and what’s “not,� and of course, on death, really fired off my imagination.
I suppose I’d have found this play on my own at some point, but reading it so close to my birthday got me confronting my mortality once again. ...more
“Yes, now I remember, yesterday evening we spent blathering about nothing in particular. That's been going on now for half a century.�
I had a very viv“Yes, now I remember, yesterday evening we spent blathering about nothing in particular. That's been going on now for half a century.�
I had a very vivid dream about school after reading this (helps when you finish reading Waiting for Godot at 2:30am, and you drift away while thinking about absurdism and the meaning of life), and this dream I think enhanced my opinion of this play. The play CONTINUED, so to speak. And I woke up loving this play � kinda crazy.
Which, I must say, Waiting for Godot MUST be enhanced by reading with another person; especially the playfulness, silliness, and speediness of some of the dialogue between Didi and Gogo. That being said, I did enjoy reading this a lot � this play about “nothing� and “everything.� There were moments that were giving me pause; or I realized it was a little boring to read, because a lot of the magic comes from the intentional, meaningful silences (can imagine audiences howling with laughter at the brutal mundanity of Didi and Gogo's predicament and pleasant suicidal ideation).
“Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! (Pause. Vehemently.) Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for once the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say?� (Estrogon says nothing)
The visuals would’ve helped me, too, because there is such a blasé approach to suicide, but you know, it’s better to put it off for a day, because Godot may really be coming soon. The two tragic buffoons looking at this sad tree, and realizing, “tomorrow we’ll bring the rope. Surely tomorrow.�
If The Myth of Sisyphus was a pure absurdist comedy, and you had to endure (suffer) with a friend, you get Waiting for Godot. Trying to get ideas for plays and scenes to perform with one partner, and this one for many reasons has a few really good moments....more
"Hear my soul speak: The very instant that I saw you did My heart fly to your service, there resides To make me slave to it, and for your sake Am I th"Hear my soul speak: The very instant that I saw you did My heart fly to your service, there resides To make me slave to it, and for your sake Am I this patient log-man."
I'm playing Ferdinand in the Ferdinand/Miranda scene (Act 3, Scene 1) for my Shakespeare class with my classmate Piti. This scene is definitely my favorite scene of the play, and it's a lot of fun to play with. Ferdinand is Grade-A simp-of-the-year.
“When the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers for the name of king? To cabin! Silence! Trouble us not.�
Not my favorite Shakespeare to read. Definitely would be aided by WATCHING it. That Act 1 set piece would be crazy as well; seeing the actual tempest (storm) happening on the boat. And then all the ensuing fallout of that.
“Sorrow makes for sincerity, I think.� “It sure brings it out in people.� “The little there is belongs to people who have experienced some sorrow.�
Revis“Sorrow makes for sincerity, I think.� “It sure brings it out in people.� “The little there is belongs to people who have experienced some sorrow.�
Revisited this play yesterday at the Drama Book Shop because I was going to watch Kowalski, a new play about the tango between Marlon Brando and Tennessee Williams ahead of the production of A Streetcar Named Desire � in which Brando is supposed to meet Williams to audition for Stanley Kowalski. And since I’m writing this ŷ review after, I can say with full confidence that I loved Kowalski!
“I was—sort of—thrilled by it.�
And I’ll be seeing Paul Mescal prowling about in March with the new transfer of A Streetcar Named Desire � very excited for that (and for Patsy Ferran!).
“I don’t want realism. I want magic! [Mitch laughs] Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell truth, I tell what OUGHT to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it!—Don’t turn the light on!�
I’ve seen� most of the movie? But I was in high school and I barely remember it.
Holy moly. A tremendous read. The dialogue is so dang good, and the characters are all such wonderful creatures. All of them are on different parts of the spectrum of accepting their life how it is.
Is this all it was ever going to be? Two dingy rooms, separated by a curtain? Is this too common?
Desire � oh, desire. We know it’s the root of all suffering. To want is to suffer. A streetcar named suffering, wouldn't that be a title. But this is all relative, as someone like Stella can look past her meager circumstances because of the MAN that is Stanley Kowalski. He’s described as a brute, and that’s kind of what he is; he’s a man, and men are animals. We all are animals, no? And we can’t explain our animalistic impulses.
“But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark—that sort of make everything else seem—unimportant.�
Blanche, Stella, Stanley, and Mitch are incredible, fully-realized characters. Love them all, and Tennessee Williams made them real, made them disgusting, made them beautiful. Absolute masterpiece. Several moments from this play permanently lodged in my brain....more
“What I’ve realized, Kostya, is that, with us, whether we’re writers or actors, what really counts is not dreaming about fame and glory� but stamina: “What I’ve realized, Kostya, is that, with us, whether we’re writers or actors, what really counts is not dreaming about fame and glory� but stamina: knowing how to keep going despite everything, and having faith in yourself—I’ve got faith in myself now and that’s helped the pain, and when I think to myself, ‘You’re on the stage!� then I’m not afraid of anything life can do to me.�
I’ve now read the four essential Chekhov plays, and, in a way, I’ve “read� this one before with Aaron Posner’s Stupid Fucking Bird (a sort-of adaptation), which will forever have a place in my heart as the play that I used to audition for Stella Adler, kickstarting this new phase of my life. But as I was reading The Seagull, specifically this Tom Stoppard version of the play, I kept thinking to myself, “man, this is THE Chekhov play, isn’t it?�
“You know, I’ve lived a pick-and-choose sort of life, plenty of variety, I’m not complaining, but let me tell you, if I’d ever experienced that transcendent feeling artists get in the moment of inspiration, then I believe I would have had nothing but contempt for my physical life and everything that goes with it and I’d have left the earth behind me and soared away into the skies.�
Maybe it’s where I find myself in my life, but the musings and dialogue of this play, and its characters� I love it all so much. There’s a caustic brutality that all these characters inadvertently inflict on one another, and it all comes from art, love, or the lack of (good) art and the absence of love. These characters ‘suffer,� but it’s technically not the greatest suffering imaginable � just broken hearts, unfulfilled dreams, and cuckolding right in front of your eyes.
“Loving without hope—waiting years on end for something, you don’t know what� Better off married and forget about love, I’ll have new troubles to blot out the old ones—and anyway, anything for a change. Shall we have another [drink]?�
It’s a comedy � or at least this was Chekhov’s original intention. As Stanislavski and other directors and ensembles tackled the piece over the years (after it was originally booed at its first performance in Russia), the play has taken on another life and identity of its own, and it’s viewed as tragic, dramatic, with such a sadboi central performance in Konstantin.
“Now promise me there’ll be no more (pulling an imaginary trigger) chk-chk! when I’m gone.�
It proves it comes down to performance and interpretation, because yes, this play is SO melodramatic. Characters� choices truly are justifiable, but sometimes you just need to slap them across the face to knock some sense into them. But someone needs to slap ME across the face sometimes, too; I get the struggle of all of these characters. Their musings are beautiful, and I think Tom Stoppard’s version of the text captures sentiments so tenderly that I found myself nodding along with and empathizing with on every page.
“Hm� here you are talking about fame and fortune and some interesting, brilliant life I’m supposed to be having, but I’m afraid these sweet thoughts mean no more to me than sweet cakes, which I never eat.�
Gosh, that Shakespeare in Central Park creative team? I didn’t realize that THIS version I picked out at the Drama Book Shop was the version that was directed by Mike Nichols, with Philip Seymour Hoffman (!) as Konstantin, Meryl Streep as Arkadina, Natalie Portman as Nina, Christopher Walken as Sorin, Kevin Kline as Trigorin� the entire cast is divine, and it made reading this play a little easier, just imagining in my head each of them performing.
Konstantin is just a little sadboi and I love him so much. I just know I can play Konstantin or Con in SFB one day; frankly, I possess the energy and can be convincing as a pouty, woe-is-me, pathetic creative. But I love all of these characters so much; poor Konstantin, poor Masha, poor Nina, poor Arkadina, poor Dorn� poor everybody....more
“We can’t not believe in something. We can’t stop believing. We just end up dying if we stop. Just end up dead.�
Within the first five pages of reading“We can’t not believe in something. We can’t stop believing. We just end up dying if we stop. Just end up dead.�
Within the first five pages of reading this, I already thought to myself, “where has Sam Shepard been my whole life?� Thank you again to my acting technique teacher Josh for recommending Shepard to me. True West was brilliant, and Buried Child, which won the Pulitzer for Drama in 1979, was just as amazing.
Gobsmacked with the writing in this beautiful play, with such subtle brutality. I thought to myself, “man, every play I’m reading is the same,� but it’s just poetic that I decided to pick three plays to read in recent months that are soul siblings � Long Day’s Journey Into Night by O’Neill, Death of a Salesman by Miller, and now Buried Child by Shepard. Three essential American plays, and with themes and characters that’ll stay with me forever, and that will inform all future art! Because everything does come back to family, to dreams.
“He’s not my flesh and blood! My flesh and blood’s buried in the backyard!�
That ending! Holy cow. I was a tad confused, but I got the soul of what was communicated. I absolutely respect how subtle the writing is; the words do so much, and with all the dialogue in the play, there are a few pointed, crucial lines that change EVERYTHING. The last couple pages, I had to stop and just visualize what I think the stage would look like with everything happening. Who’s being acknowledged, who’s not being acknowledged. How much of this� is real? There’s a casual surrealism that is quite lovely (and scary) that I’m curious how it’d be staged.
“I don’t want to talk!� “You don’t wanna die do you?� “No, I don’t wanna die either.� “Well, you gotta talk or you’ll die.� “Who told you that?� “That’s what I know. I found that out in New Mexico. I thought I was dying but I just lost my voice.�
Maybe watching the play would actually make it a little less vague. Because there’s a huge event that I didn’t immediately pick up on until finishing and reflecting and reading some takes on the play. I knew that the “buried child� was important to a couple characters (and why they were resented or loved), but the big, uh, twist or reveal. It was beyond me. I still was quite shaken by the play without realizing, but fuck, man. Heavy stuff.
Thinking of Vince, Shelly, Dodge, Tilden, Halie, Bradley� six characters with such rich backgrounds and objectives that they’re each after. They all dreamed of something. And none of them are getting it. You may think it’s the hope or dream that kills you, but hope most importantly sustains (as The Iceman Cometh emphasized). You gotta dream. You gotta have something to look forward to.
Loving Sam Shepard. I have a book of seven plays by him, and I’ll just keep at it! They were organized like this for a reason....more
“Don’t b a pussy. Life without riskisdeath. Desire,like the world,is am accident. The bestsex is anon. We liv as we dream,ALONE. I’ll make u cum like “Don’t b a pussy. Life without riskisdeath. Desire,like the world,is am accident. The bestsex is anon. We liv as we dream,ALONE. I’ll make u cum like a train.�
Lol. In the context of the play, the above is an online chatroom that two of the characters, uh, participate in. But there’s a lot of truth in its crudeness! Which is what this play is about: the reckoning with the truth, with the impulses and desires that rage within us. Knowledge of the truth, of this perversion that exists within us (maybe some with more intensity than others), does not bring us “closer� together. In this case, it’s like what that Chevy Impala band said, “the less I know the better.�
“Deception is brutal, I’m not pretending otherwise.�
The dialogue is quick, it’s sharp, it’s biting, it’s hilarious. There’s a cruelty that exists, and these characters are trapped in this vortex where they’re consciously or unconsciously pulled toward each other. All of this chaos started with a fated (cursed?) car accident, and over several years, the characters bump into each other over and over like the end of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.
“Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off. But it’s better if you do.�
Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco mined so much of their HITS from this play. Can only imagine the fellas all sitting around, watching the Mike Nichols movie, and� taking the wrong things from the film, lol. Oh, the early-to-mid 2000s�
“You’re a man, you’d come if the tooth fairy winked at you.�
Yes, I’ve also seen the Nichols film, and that was my first exposure to Closer. It was a lot of fun to read the play; which was quite faithfully adapted from what I remember. This semester at Adler, there’ve been a few scenes from this play assigned for our Scene Study class. Technically I haven’t been assigned a scene, but there’s a possibility I can sub in to replace a classmate who may or may not be asked to leave -- whatever happens, I wish him the best; I love the guy. I’m just taking the initiative to read this play in the event that I’m asked to play Larry.
“He spends hours staring up my arsehole like there’s going to be some answer there. Any ideas, Anna?�
It’s a great scene, and let’s be honest, not really a character I could / should play, but for ONE scene, I can embody the carnal beast that is Larry. He has some delicious, piercing slashes of dialogue that he hurls at Dan.
“Everyone wants to be happy.� “Depressives don’t. They want to be unhappy to confirm they’re depressed. If they were happy they couldn’t be depressed any more, they’d have to go out into the world and live, which can be� depressing.�
The beats and silences do a lot of work, but this is verbal warfare. Not many monologues or diatribes; there’s such a music to the dialogue that makes it so quick to read. Usually just different variations of the two-person combos that can engage among the four-person cast. The truth will not set you free in Closer. But we need to know the truth, even though all evidences suggests it won’t help any of us.
“What’s so great about the truth? Try lying for a change � it’s the currency of the world.�
“Get a lot of men in here, crying their guts out?� “Occupational hazard.�...more
“I’m probably just as unhappy as you are, but I’m not giving in to despair. I� I endure my unhappiness and I will endure it until my life comes to its“I’m probably just as unhappy as you are, but I’m not giving in to despair. I� I endure my unhappiness and I will endure it until my life comes to its natural end. You have to endure it too.�
My. What is there to say, really? What you see is what you get! There’s not much subtext with Chekhov, no? That’s what I’ve learned in class and what I’ve surmised throughout my journey through art, film, plays. Oh yes, there was a gun! And yes, it was of course fired. It did not go how I thought it’d go, though!
“Look, in one hundred, two hundred years there will be people who look back and laugh at us because we lived our lives so foolishly and tastelessly.�
There have been many translations and versions of Uncle Vanya, but call me biased, I had to go with the Annie Baker version. This year’s Lincoln Center revival was Heidi Schreck’s version, which I’ve read sounds even more “contemporary� than Baker’s� but come on, 2012 modernity is modern enough for me. Annie Baker can translate the biggest of ideas with the most casual and simplest of English. It’s a magic trick.
Yes, I did imagine Steve Carell as Uncle Vanya and William Jackson Harper as Astrov.
“The past is gone, it was wasted on trivialities, and the present� God, the present is too ridiculous for words.�
These are characters speaking freely, openly (whether or not the people they’re talking to want to hear it) about their emotions, about the suffering of being alive, about the suffering of desire, about the suffering of not amounting to much. Of being on the cusp of death and feeling� unfulfilled! Fuck, man! That’s one of my biggest fears, if not THE BIGGEST!
“Man has been blessed with reason and creativity, but instead of progressing, he only knows how to ruin.�
The ending is quite bittersweet. A choice was made! Because if we don’t choose, we’re just fucking ourselves. But the choice that was made� it’s hard to tell if the characters can honestly follow that for the rest of their lives. We can delude ourselves all we want. But we need someone there with us. I feel for everyone in this play; no one gets what they want. But perhaps they each get what they need. Humans are complex creatures, no?
My Scene Study teacher Shawn said today that he can ‘appreciate� Chekhov but he can’t say that he really ‘likes� Chekhov. I’m not basing this off much, but I did absolutely devour Uncle Vanya � I read this all today, such an easy read. And yes, I did audition for Stella Adler with Stupid Fucking Bird, which is� sort of adapted from Chekhov’s The Seagull? This man is obsessed with art and the futility of being obsessed with art.
Fuck, man. You and me both! The emptiness that exists with unrequited love and the unfairness of this world that we’re in, and the necessity of art to satiate that emptiness, but then you realize that nothing can fill that void. Gotta read some more Chekhov, but I think I get it. And I think I love it! It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy!
“It’s so difficult for me. If you only knew how difficult it is!� “What can we do? We have to live. We’ll live, Uncle Vanya. We’ll live through a long, long row of days and drawn-out evenings; we’ll endure the trials that fate sends us; we’ll work for others; and finally in our old age, having never known peace, when our hour comes, we’ll die. And from beyond the grave we’ll be able to look back and say that we suffered, that we wept, that we were bitter, and God will take pity on us, and you and I, Uncle, dear Uncle, we’ll see a radiant new life, beautiful, full of grace, and we’ll smile and look back tenderly at our past unhappiness. And we’ll rest. I believe this, Uncle, I believe in it passionately. We’ll rest!�...more
“Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven.�
Great characters, and a fable in a sense that is “always relevant.� Our Pre“Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven.�
Great characters, and a fable in a sense that is “always relevant.� Our President-elect loves to use the term “witch hunt,� and he should look in the mirror and wonder why he’s constantly being accused, blamed, etc. for the transgressions he’s made. Oy vey.
“Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!�
Reading the play with classmates and popcorning roles was a lot of fun as we prepare to work on the play in our Technique class this upcoming semester (and we each had a couple beverages of liquid courage in us, so this made it a bit more fun, hehe). At the time I’m writing this, we’re just halfway through reading it, but meeting up again next week to finish the play. Some delicious dialogue that we get to say! That’s part of the beautiful immersion of this play.
Earlier in the day I listened to the L.A. Theatre Works production of The Crucible, and I loved it. Really was exciting to listen to (I wish I was able to watch it, but this was still really cool). Like a campfire story! Helped inspire me to make choices when I was reciting some passages from The Crucible with my friends....more
Heartbreaking. Devastating. Comes right off the page and is such a tragic page-turner. My heart aches for Wil“Pop, I’m a dime a dozen and so are you!�
Heartbreaking. Devastating. Comes right off the page and is such a tragic page-turner. My heart aches for Willy, for Linda, for Biff, for Happy.
“A salesman is got to dream, boy; it comes with the territory.�
What an affecting read. I’m writing this review at 3:45 in the morning and I should just go to sleep; maybe my mind is racing because of school, because of the election, because of lots of things. But this play� certainly one of the best I’ve read so far and genuinely probably going to be one of the most important plays I’ll have read in my life.
Originally I said to myself, “finish Act One and then continue tomorrow.� Then Act One finished and I was like, “I think we can just bang this out.�
I’ve been Biff. I’ve had those exact conversations with my mom, in different contexts; but the dreams a father has for himself, for his family, and for his children � but specifically his son(s)� it’s too damn real.
“You’ve got to make up your mind now, there’s no leeway any more—either he’s your father and you pay him that respect or else you’re not to come here. I know he’s not easy to get along with—nobody knows that better than me—but�"...
“It sounds so old-fashioned and silly, but I tell you he put his whole life into you and you’ve turned your backs on him. Biff, I swear to God; Biff, his life is in your hands.�
It wasn’t really that long ago when I was the spiteful Biff. We find out later what this spite comes from, and it’s also heartbreaking and reasonably debilitating. Everyone is right in this play, and everyone is wrong! Could Biff have had a bit more spine at times? Yeah. Did Willy fuck up his son forever? Yeah.
“Figure it out; work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there’s nobody to live in it.�
The writing is incredible. And the place it comes from, is so sad, too. I read that Arthur Miller got the idea for this play after a chance encounter between himself and his uncle Manny Newman, a salesman. Newman never said congrats or anything, and just said, “Buddy is doing very well.� Newman, consciously or unconsciously, always comparing his son to his nephew for their whole lives. Newman ended up committing suicide soon after.
“A man can’t go out the way he came in, Ben, a man has got to add up to something. You can’t, you can’t…�
Expectations. Desire. Suffering. All go hand in hand. Such in conversation with The Iceman Cometh, which I just recently read for the first time. I had to keep putting the book/play down to catch myself; just think of the new information I had to process. The heaviness of the words; the pangs of my heart. So, so tragic. It just gets sadder and sadder. But it’s, unfortunately, so true.
“Will you let me go, for Christ’s sake? Will you take that phoney dream and burn it before something happens?�...more
“I’m not denying anything � I feel it all � and it’s a privilege to suffer as much as I do.�
There’s so much I can say about this play, about this show“I’m not denying anything � I feel it all � and it’s a privilege to suffer as much as I do.�
There’s so much I can say about this play, about this show. And I will! This is my ŷ, and I can ramble and rant if I want to.
For the longest time, the ads of this show on social media or the subway always intrigued me. “Oh, it’s Frank from Succession. And it looks like he’s typecast again to be a corporate ‘employee.’� The office visuals and the stapler to Sydney Lemmon’s face made me think this was about two co-workers shooting the breeze existentially at their cubicles.
However, that is not what the show’s about. I went into the show mostly blind, and was successfully going to be able to do so until my summer Adler classmate Jared (who I took with me the first time I saw the play) told me at dinner prior to the show that, ‘yeah, so it’s about a social media worker who has a viral video and needs to see a therapist?� I wish I hadn’t known that, but still, that is only the tip of the iceberg of what this play’s about.
When I tell you my jaw dropped when I realized what the show’s “about”� I think I even teared up. The specificity, me working in social media for the past seven years, and watching a young woman in disarray vent, process, and ramble about an uncertain world, her sense of ‘purpose,� and every little thing in between: there was so much to love. Jane is truly one of my all-time favorite characters � I see a lot myself in Jane, and I think a lot of young people would, too. And Sydney Lemmon’s performance? Lord have mercy. Absolutely incredible stuff.
“It’s endless and hopeless because you just get trapped in the like “discourse� of it all and you just end up mindlessly reposting GoFundMes all day, begging for spare change on your little Instagram street corner on behalf of strangers instead of actually doing something so I’m just not sure therapy aligns with how I deal with things.�
So that first night I saw the show, I walked with my friend Jared to the subway. We parted, but I had it in the back of my mind, since I was still so floored by the show, “I gotta see if they’re going to do stage door!� I went back to the theater and a few folks were still waiting. I asked if anyone came out yet, and they said no one yet. Soon, Peter Friedman came out and he was so generous talking to everyone who waited. When he got to me, I told him about how much I loved the show, how I went in blind and was floored; that my day job is in social media. And how moved I was with his performance and Sydney’s because� the following week I’d be starting at Stella Adler in their conservatory! He did this cool little hop and clapped his hands and said to me, “wow, that’s some change! What inspired this?� And I told him just the burning inside of you to want to create, to want to say something. Watching the two of them perform was the perfect primer for school. He extended his hand and shook my hand, wished me luck, and thanked me for coming again.
And then Sydney came out � some people had cleared out, didn’t feel like waiting. But I knew I needed to speak to her because her performance was just so, so moving for me. Kind of had a similar intro as with Peter, and when I told her I was starting at Stella Adler next week, she said, “hell yes!� and then she gave me a high-five, and then did a little hand-hug with me. She was genuinely floored for me, it seemed, and she told me that part of what took her so long to come outside was that one of her acting school professors was at the show and so she caught up with him; the training and education is absolutely essential. She told me to keep seeing theater, keep staying inspired. I had gushed to her how great I thought she was and how moved I was and she was so appreciative of that. Took pics with both Peter and Sydney that night and I remember walking back and getting a late-night bite at Junior’s still floored.
“You don’t know yourself and so you can’t accept the idea that anyone else might.�
Through TKTS, I got discounted tickets to see the show again � this would make it two viewings in about three weeks. It didn’t matter to me, I knew the show was closing soon and I just wanted to immerse myself once more. I ended up taking my conservatory classmate Nour � it was his first Broadway play! And he was so grateful for the chance. He ended up really enjoying the play, and that was validating for me. Glad it didn’t go to waste! Such a great show to have a conversation about after; it invites so much discourse. Nour even wanted to see it again the weekend after with a friend from Chicago; I was like, “this was your first Broadway play, you could see anything else!�
Cut to the announcement of Closing Night. And the very effective social media-posting by Max Wolf-Friedlich and the JOB IG page � I splurged on second-row seats. I took my friend Andrew with me, heavily influenced by the fact that we both worked in social media together for a year; and we have conversations about ‘advertisers not wanting their ads to pop up next to neo-Nazi content.� I’ve never seen a play three times before, but if there’s any show that would make me do it, it’s JOB. If it wasn’t closing, maybe I’d see it again! It was regularly featured in TKTS.
And this viewing was probably the best. Just leaned in, floored by the performances. The most I ever teared up � this is not really a ‘sobbing� type of show, but there’s something about Lemmon’s vulnerability as Jane that moves me immensely. You just want to HELP her.
The night before Closing Night, I actually went to a table reading of Max Wolf-Friedlich’s new play currently called HEAD. In regards to that play, it’s already a hit for my money’s worth; authentic in its portrayal of young people, specifically people� my age! That was such a lovely night because it really felt like being in the NYC creative scene; everyone walking around was interesting. I got to speak with the director of JOB and HEAD Michael Herwitz for about 10 minutes; a bit before the reading and then after with my classmate Romeo. The tangibility of everything, being around these creatives� it was so vibrant, it was so alive. Madeline Weinstein, who I loved in Between the Temples, played the lead female character and it was nice talking to her for a few minutes after the reading as well.
By the end of the night, I finally got to speak with Max. Went totally the uncool way and just gushed about JOB, about HEAD, and said, “I’m gonna ask a real cornball thing of you� and I pulled out my script and asked him to sign it. Told him I was going back to JOB tomorrow for the third time, and he was like, “three times! Thank you. And I’ll see you there! It’ll be a special one, since it’s Closing Night.� I also told him that I was planning on doing Jane’s “Nordstrom Rack� monologue in my Technique class and he thought that was pretty great. I said, “I know it’s a part I’ll never play, but�" and he cut in with, “hey, who knows? Why not!� and that was pretty funny to hear. If he ever revisits this but decides to gender-flip it and make Jane instead Gene and make him an anxious Filipino-American� I’ll demand an audition (and also would think, main character syndrome of me, this has to be for me, no?).
And at the end of the Closing Night performance, I was able to chat with Sydney again for a moment, and she signed my script as well. When she saw me, she said, “hey you!� I also told her I was going to be doing the Nordstrom Rack monologue in my technique class and she was excited about that, and said, “you’ll be able to give the character your own spin! Have fun with it.�
As I was walking out of the theater, Max was standing in the aisle. He extended his hand and shook my hand, said, “thanks for coming out again, EJ!�
I mean, I didn’t actually say much about the script itself or the play. It’s just so damn good. The ideas communicated, Sydney and Peter with the acting masterclass. Max was 26 when he wrote this. Come on. It helped me realize the necessity for youth in theater; for young, new perspectives. This is the play that really made me think, “okay, I can do this.� Be specific, have a point of view; be curious. Andrew and I are gonna powwow one of these days and shoot the breeze on the early Ameritrade days. That’d be a fun little project to work on; maybe it can be something!
“It’s like there’s another person there with me, rubbing my back, telling me to keep going as I march into the bathroom and I brush my teeth and fuck around with my hair and eat my muesli and I drink my coffee and as I do each of those things the panic turns them into little missions � I have to NAIL flossing, I have to DESTROY my emails from Nordstrom Rack. I delete them and I EMPTY the trash and I imagine my emails burning. These little morning routine fucking inconsequential things become a sense of real…purpose…but on days like today there just isn’t anything else � there’s only me and the panic, alone together.�...more
“I’ve had hell inside me. I can spot it in others.�
Okay. Wow. This is freakin� brilliant. So heartbreaking. Pipe dreams, who needs ‘em?
…r?
“It’s wo“I’ve had hell inside me. I can spot it in others.�
Okay. Wow. This is freakin� brilliant. So heartbreaking. Pipe dreams, who needs ‘em?
…r?
“It’s worse if you kill someone and they have to go on living. I’d be glad of the Chair! It’d wipe it out! It’d square me with myself.�
As a read, I think I enjoyed this or was moved more than I was with Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which I think perhaps is the minority opinion? But these two works are some of O’Neill’s masterpieces. I won’t protest the idea that WATCHING or even performing in Long Day’s Journey Into Night is more affecting than Iceman Cometh. But I did in fact LOVE immensely both plays.
The play’s biggest point that it makes is that we need that reason, that hope, that pipe dream, to genuinely keep going. Hickey is all talk when he tells the regulars at the bar to give up their pipe dreams and go ahead and DO what they keep saying they’ll do ‘tomorrow� or ‘when the time’s right.� I’ll admit, some of Hickey’s earlier points I did agree with in certain contexts.
I can even speak for myself, if I never applied to acting school when I did, I don’t think I ever would’ve. Perhaps since late 2019 or early 2020, I was saying, “when the TD Ameritrade and Schwab integration completes, I’m gonna do something! I’m gonna go back to school, I’ll get a new job, whatever.� Now, antithetical to what happens to the doomed characters in this play, I did DO THE THING and I feel so much happier.
“A stew bum is a stew bum and yuh can’t change him.�
This play is in conversation with Kierkegaard’s musing and philosophy (which I frequently cite since it’s so important and is my MO): “happiness is in desire; so long as there is desire, there is hope, and there is potential for said happiness. Even if happiness doesn’t exist in the current moment.� So long as you’re hoping for something, you’re looking forward to something, you know that what you’re enduring is in service for something bigger, or something outside of yourself � you can keep going!
And Hickey, being all talk, and trying to convince himself the most of all (unsuccessfully), tells everyone, and I'm paraphrasing now, “give up! Accept who you are and you’ll be liberated.�
A secondary interpretation of everything happening� don’t drink! This is as much of an anti-drinking PSA as anything; but, to which I can also contend: “the social drinker will live longer than the friendless, straight-edge individual.� Because Hickey, sober as can be throughout the play, is the play’s biggest firecracker.
Some great characters and great threads. Perhaps one too many characters in this script, which is why more contemporary adaptations remove one or two characters completely. The play truly begins when Hickey shows up initially, but it takes more than 40-50 pages for that to happen.
There are some incredible, heartbreaking, and tragic monologues here. I love these characters and what they have to say. That final sequence? There’s no other way this play could’ve honestly ended, and it’s perfect, and it’s hellish, and it’s purgatory. So cynical, but so real. ...more
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