A Man's a Man at Classic

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 1/13/14 at 1:47pm

Has anyone seen this yet?

[dreaming]

Posted: 1/14/14 at 11:27am

I hate to bump, but I'm rather interested in this.

[chrisampm2]

Posted: 1/16/14 at 5:20pm

I too would love to know if anyone has any feedback on this.

[macnyc]

Posted: 1/16/14 at 10:52pm

Seeing it tomorrow! I will report back.

[macnyc]

Posted: 1/17/14 at 10:50am

The show tonight was cancelled. Apparently one of the actors suffered an injury during the performance last night, according to what someone posted on All That Chat and also Twitter. Does anyone know what happened?

[fallingawake]

Posted: 1/24/14 at 1:57pm

Bumping this up, has anyone seen this show? I believe that performances have resumed after the actor's injury (?), so just curious on any feedback

[macnyc]

Posted: 1/24/14 at 3:35pm

Minor spoilers are contained in this post!!!

Okay, I did get to see this on Tuesday, during the blizzard. I'm not a very experienced theatergoer, so take that into consideration. I enjoyed Act 1 a lot. It moved well, and the scenes were interesting. I liked the music too, which is new for this production (by Duncan Sheik). In fact, the show almost felt like a musical at times. The acting was overall very good, except that the English accents tended to come and go. And I give particular credit to the understudy who took over for the actor who had his foot injured backstage and had to withdraw from the production.

Then, I felt, things started to fall apart in Act 2. I guess that's just how the play is written, and maybe people don't want to mess with Brecht by cutting text, I don't know. But in my opinion, the scene with the elephant just went on and on, and it's really not that important a plot point, and after that I started to lose focus. Also, the characters start to seem less like real people and more like symbols. I guess that's Brecht too.

I think the production was very professionally done. The sets are simple but quite beautiful at times (although sometimes you're looking at a garage door, which is not beautiful). Lots of barrels painted bright orange function as all sorts of platforms and even the aforementioned elephant. The evocation of a train was excellent too.

The acting was very naturalistic except for Justin Vivian Bond. She did a fair amount of mugging, but again, maybe that's what's called for by the script or by the director, I don't know. I didn't see any instrumentalists, so I'm guessing the accompaniment was prerecorded (plus, none are listed in the program).

I recommend this production for those who have an interest in Brecht or in plays from that period. I read that this one is very rarely performed. I'm glad I saw it, and I'm looking forward to seeing Threepenny Opera at the Atlantic!

Maybe someone with a knowledge of theater will weigh in on A Man's a Man!










Updated On: 1/24/14 at 03:35 PM

[AntV]

Posted: 1/25/14 at 10:21pm

I don't have a great knowledge of theater or Brecht either, but I did enjoy this show for the most part. I agree that the second act felt vastly different from the first and I didn't care for it as much. All of the characters had suddenly changed to get the point of the play across and there was now very little humor. And I found the way Galy Gay was transformed to be quite odd and nonsensical. The songs were indeed good and added to the show, but definitely were not enough of them. It seemed like they went through 75% of them in the first 15 minutes. The production was very well done and the set was nice to look at. The cast was all great except for Justin Vivian Bond who seemed miscast and was like acting in a completely different show than everyone else. I say see it if you have a chance. It's a fun show, but at the end you might feel underwhelmed.

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 1/26/14 at 5:01am

What's the running time for this?

[Melissa25]

Posted: 1/31/14 at 11:01pm

I was scheduled to attend the Sat 2/1 show of A Man's a Man at 3:00 followed by the symposium.

Unfortunately I cannot attend. PM me if you are interested in the ticket.