I apologize for starting a new thread, but when I searched for one I couldn't get it to open...
Anyway! Wow! I loved this play and production SO much. I think it's one of the best new plays I've seen on Broadway in the past five years. Everything about it was just perfect from the acting (oh, the acting!), the set, music, lighting and the script.
The play flew by, and Ayad Akhtar seems to be one of the few to remember it's always best to leave them wanting more. Afterward, my two friends and I all said we would gladly have stayed for a second act.
I don't want to give anything away about the plot because it's very tightly written (no blather play here) and the twists are best left for viewing. My pulse was pounding and a few moments felt like a punch in the gut. Riveting is a good word.
All five actors were great and it's impossible for me to pick a favorite.
My mind is racing and it felt so nice to finally be mentally stimulated at the theater. To actually go see a show and be able to discuss the content with friends afterward.
I don't know what else to say. Well, except for go see this show!! (I'll absolutely be making a return visit.)
Marie: Don't be in such a hurry about that pretty little chippy in Frisco.
Tony: Eh, she's a no chip!
Good! Honestly I barely wanted to go see this tonight. Had no idea what it was about. Wasn't in the mood. But now I can't stop pausing the dvr because the play is all I can think about.
Marie: Don't be in such a hurry about that pretty little chippy in Frisco.
Tony: Eh, she's a no chip!
It's amazing-I think it is brilliantly acted and a very timely piece. I really loved his other play, too, and was excited to see this. The actors are all exceptional and I couldn't detect a weak link. It generated conversation and the audience was audibly gasping at certain points.
I loved this play!! It was very thought provoking and you saw different viewpoints and opinions. All five actors were wonderful and gave amazing performances, but I must single out Hari Dhillon. He was extraordinary!! Definitely planning a return visit.
I saw this in 2012 and I thought it was a decent play, but it just didn't work well for me. I couldn't place my finger on it, but I don't think that I was sucked into the play, and this play relies on the audience being 100% with them. It's certainly a respectable piece, but it just didn't cut it for me.
Anything regarding shows stated by this account is an attempt to convey opinion and not fact.
I saw this tonight and while I respected the show I did NOT enjoy it.
There is something that happens after the dinner party scene that repulsed me and soured me on the show totally. It is Vile, Vile, and for whatever reason I can't get past it.
The cast is very strong as already mentioned. Special note to Karen Pittman who I loved. Hari Dhillon is giving a very strong performance, and Josh Radnor is even doing some nice work.
The material is worthy of a play, and I agree there are not many plays out there focusing on subject matter like this, but I felt like in the end the play thought it was nobler than it was. Much of the dialogue felt like it was there for shock value rather than being something these characters would actually say to one another.
Overall, I can understand why people liked this, but it was not for me. I imagine the reviews will be great.
Not sure that this play is meant to be "enjoyable". I found it tense, riveting, crisply written, and uniformly well-acted. There is a lot that will make people uncomfortable. Is that necessarily a bad thing?
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
I'm going Saturday night, and it's my most anticipated show this fall. I have read the play, in fact several times (it's one I finished and then turned to start anew, without so much as a pause). On the page, it's simply riveting from the opening moments. It has led me to some research about Velazquez and his portrait of Juan de Paraje, which figures prominently in the premise (one needn't know any more than the script reveals, but it fascinates me). There is so much to absorb and mull. But the revelations in the storytelling are so earned, the sharp turns so organic. People quibble with its pile-up of contrivance (and some call it "soap opera," because the milieu is domestic), but I buy all of detailed plotting employed here. Everything fits, and it makes the final complex turn(s) so powerful. I can't wait to see this.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
eperkins-Regarding the Tonys-those are ONLY for Broadway runs (aside from the 'classics' rule-which hardly applies here). Disgraced will be eligible for best play. I think that and Curious Incident are a fascinating dichotomy indeed for that category.
Disgraced is a highly provocative piece to be sure. It sure got reaction out of the audience last night.
Shows that have had a run off-broadway before they made it to broadway are then eligible for Best Revival. For example, Hedwig and Violet were elegible for best revival last year due to off-broadway runs previously.
Shows that have had a run off-broadway before they made it to broadway are then eligible for Best Revival. For example, Hedwig and Violet were elegible for best revival last year due to off-broadway runs previously.
This is not true. Those shows were eligible for Best Revival more so because they had had years of being popular entities between their off-Broadway runs and their Broadway runs. I am fairly certain that “Disgraced” will be considered a new play, just as “Fun Home” will be considered a new musical. As just one example, “In the Heights” had a run off-Broadway, but then was considered a new musical on Broadway.
Cybourne Park Venus in Fur Peter and the Starcatcher
All recent Tony nominees for Best Play that moved to Broadway from Off-Broadway. "New" works are eligible, even if they've had recent productions Off-Broadway, regionally, or internationally. (As is the case with most "new" plays on Broadway.) DISGRACED and FUN HOME are two examples this season. Neither will be considered "revivals" because of their prior Off-Broadway runs.
Although never having appeared on Broadway before, VIOLET and HEDWIG were deemed revivals based on their "classic" status (i.e., long history of prior productions).
No. The rule is pretty simple. If a show is considered a 'classic' (think "Little Shop of Horrors," "Hedwig" and "Assassins) then it is deemed a revival. This means that it has established itself over the course of many years through tours, regional productions and quite often off-Broadway runs. (Now I argue that in the categories for book and score if they were never eligible they should be one time. But, that's another story.) But the production itself is deemed a revival.
In the cases of Disgraced and Fun Home, they are new-they have not yet established themselves under the 'classics' rule. They will be eligible as new play and new musical.
eperkins — The Tony Committee is inconsistent in all their "rules." They have a "determination" meeting for each Broadway show, and announce eligibility results, often head-scratchers. But the official "Revival" rule is: any work that "has already appeared on Broadway in a previous production, or is regarded as being in the common theatrical repertoire". There is no time limit specified.
re: This should be an interesting season for plays.
Indeed! Here's the Tony contender line-up so far:
Best Play Airline Highway The Audience Constellations The Country House The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Disgraced Fish In The Dark Hand To God The River Wolf Hall (Parts 1 and 2)
Best Revival A Delicate Balance The Elephant Man The Heidi Chronicles It’s Only a Play Love Letters The Real Thing Skylight This Is Our Youth You Can’t Take It With You
(All subject to Tony Committee eligibility determination.)
I have my DISGRACED ticket for the weekend after opening and thanks to LincTix, it's front row. I haven't seen this since it's world premiere in Chicago, so I am incredibly excited to see it again.
wonkit — INDIAN INK is at Roundabout's Off-Broadway theater [Laura Pels]. (And, after 20 years of productions, albeit all outside NYC, will most likely be deemed a revival come Off-Broadway awards time. But you never know.)
Sorry all — didn't mean to take this thread off-topic.