Poor Behavior

[Pammylicious]

Posted: 8/7/14 at 11:01am

Haven't seen any comments about this. Theresa Rebeck of Smash fame wrote it. Playing at the Primary Stages at the Duke on 42nd Street.

Anyone see it? Have a pair of tickets for tomorrow and I'm curious. TIA

[macnyc]

Posted: 8/7/14 at 11:02am

There are a number of comments today on the other bulletin board. Not favorable.

[Pammylicious]

Posted: 8/7/14 at 11:04am

That other bulletin board hates everything I love.

[ClydeBarrow]

Posted: 8/7/14 at 11:07am

I was debating on seeing this but I've never seen anything by Rebeck that wasn't horrible.

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 8/7/14 at 11:43am

Yes, she came off as quite the miserable bitch during any interview about Smash. The reviews from a few people I talked to were quite poor.

[goldenboy]

Posted: 8/10/14 at 2:56pm

Caught this Saturday night and really enjoyed it. Great cast. Thought provoking themes
about when or not to stay in a relationship. Smart direction. Only flaw is a long monologue that needs to be shortened by the character Ian late in act two,.. Otherwise a good night of intelligent theatre.

[HBBrock]

Posted: 8/10/14 at 3:29pm

My wife and I saw the matinee last Sunday and both loved it.

[stevenycguy]

Posted: 8/11/14 at 12:04am

I would highly recommend this show. Primary Stages is one of my favorite theater companies. I've been seeing their shows since back when they were on West 45th (where the Davenport Theater now is). They tend to present more "mainstream" works that appeal to a wide cross-section of theatergoers. This show deals with 2 married couples, infidelity, anger, screaming, etc. Gets off to a slightly slow start, but then it really gets going. It runs just over 2 hours 10 minutes. It's nice to always see the artistic director whenever I attend (so he can speak to audience members, get their feedback, etc). Definitely go see the show!

[After Eight]

Posted: 8/11/14 at 5:25am

Another trying evening.

An obnoxious, insidious troublemaker (who never shuts up, unfortunately) foments discord in an ugly, nasty, and obnoxious play.

Yet another play in which one of the characters goes off on some wholly ridiculous and unfunny rant (cf. Vanya). Please, no more of these.

[mamaleh]

Posted: 8/11/14 at 9:04am

I liked MAURITIUS and THE UNDERSTUDY -- so even though DEAD ACCOUNTS was D.O.A., I'm giving this one a chance; seeing it later this week.

[mamaleh]

Posted: 8/13/14 at 8:39am

It's uneven. There are numerous moments in Act I that are intended to elicit a laugh, but they were met with silence, at least last night. The Irish character's accent is all over the place, which I found off-putting, even though he's a charmer--that is, when he's not being overbearing and a troublemaker. The couples' intersecting lives and problems are interesting, and there are some humorous spots, but I found the abrupt introduction of a couple of where-did-that-come-from plot points jarring and a sign of clumsy writing. I think it could be a better play with some judicious cutting of a too-long monologue or two. The acting is mostly fine, and the set--an urban couple's rustic place in the country--is lovely. It's not bad, just not something I would highly recommend.

[ClydeBarrow]

Posted: 8/17/14 at 11:57am

I don't typically agree with After Hate but this was one trying play.

None of the characters were likable, in fact they were all pretty horrible. You never understood why any of them were together as couples or friends. The acting ranged from flat and bland to over the top caricatures.

It finally dawned on me what bothers me about Rebeck's writing. Sitting in the theatre I felt like I was watching a bad sitcom performed in front of a live studio audience. She doesn't write plays, she writes bad tv episodes.

This was my first time going to The Duke so I guess that was one positive in the sea of negatives.

[macnyc]

Posted: 8/17/14 at 3:05pm

I liked this play a lot more than I thought I would, after reading comments on the other bulletin board describing it as "two hours of yelling." That's quite an overstatement. Yes, there were some heated words, but in between there were some thought-provoking themes raised, and the ending circled back nicely to the opening scene. I laughed quite frequently too, so it was pretty funny.

That said, I agree with mamaleh that the play is uneven, and with Clyde that the characters are, overall, pretty unlikeable. I tend not to enjoy characters that are presented as "crazy." But in this play, we really don't know who's crazy and who isn't.

I found myself wishing on more than one occasion that I was watching Dinner With Friends, a play much better than this one which I saw at the Roundabout a couple of months ago. I think that play has more to say about marriages of fairly long duration, desire and the lack of it, starting over, etc. Those characters were much better defined, also. Still, Poor Behavior is worth seeing if you can get a ticket at a good price.

Regarding the Duke: It's a very nice, small theater, and I am ashamed to admit I had no idea where it was. In my mind I saw it as part of Theater Row, even though I had mapped it out previously. The Duke is right next to the American Airlines theater, and is easy to overlook with all the sensory overload going on on that block!








Updated On: 8/17/14 at 03:05 PM

[CurtainsUpat8]

Posted: 8/23/14 at 8:36pm

I saw this today, and like some others, it was my first time at The Duke. I really like the theatre. Especially the nifty fold-up seats.

Poor Behavior was a mixed bag. This is NYC. You can always find a really talented cast/directors and they often make mediocre material seem better than it is. That is what is happening here. The actors are all really talented but the play seems to be way too verbose to the point where the characters are talking in circles.

It's not a great play. It's not even a good play. There are some very competent performances. The set is wonderful.

Miss Rebeck has gotten a long way in her career with a lot of mediocre plays. The Understudy was her best play, but that was also saved by Julie White.

This production is a NY Premier but she wrote it a few years ago and it premiered in LA. I could be wrong about that, but that's what I thought I read. I just wish companies like Primary Stages wouldn't just pick a play because it is written by one of the "famous" playwrights.

I give it two stars out of four.

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 8/24/14 at 8:38pm

I saw this afternoon's performance and was mostly unimpressed, although my problems were more with the production than with the play. I am a fan of Theresa Rebeck (she's my guilty pleasure, I guess) and this was not a perfect play by any means, but it could have been more enjoyable. Whoever described it as "two hours of yelling" is completely wrong, and it would have been better if it was. Theresa Rebeck's language needs attack, and there was far too much introspection and dead air. There was a lot of thinking for a play about impulsive decisions. The play was at its best when people were talking loudly and quickly.

I also thought the set design was not very good. It looked too lived-in for a vacation home they hardly visit, and there were some spacial details of the home that made no sense (the two upstage exits that can only lead to the same place, yet one has stairs and one does not), but I doubt I would have taken note were the production more engaging.

[Wee Thomas2]

Posted: 9/2/14 at 12:37pm

"I also thought the set design was not very good. It looked too lived-in for a vacation home they hardly visit, and there were some spacial details of the home that made no sense (the two upstage exits that can only lead to the same place, yet one has stairs and one does not), but I doubt I would have taken note were the production more engaging."

we saw this Sunday afternoon. Good sized crowd, but we were in Row b with TDF. Had only previously been at the Duke for Cock, they sure changed the seating for this!

Regarding your comment about the stage setup, I felt the left exit went upstairs, and the right one went to a downstairs bedroom. Other than that I agree -- the house looked much more used than suggested by the script.

We thought the acting was good, especially the actress playing Ella. Ian's character did a good job of not seeming like a sociopath before he acted like a sociopath. Maureen was basically a caricature, and Pete filled the rest of the roles.

I didn't like it mainly because although it didn't fit into either of the two main requirements of farce (which are "Mistaken Identity" or "Slamming Doors"), it did take too much advantage of the third requirement of farce which is "coming in to the room at just the wrong moment". You can get away with that once or twice in a show, but coming back to that well time and time again, where you can say "hey, if she had come into the room 10 seconds earlier none of this would have happened" multiple times, then you're dealing with a story that isn't strong enough to support itself without that weak assist.