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LimelightMike
#1FOOL FOR LOVE Reviews
Posted: 10/8/15 at 7:48am

MTC and Nina Arianda are back together again on Broadway. This time, however, the TONY winner isn't donning dominatrix boots.

Post 'em here, kids!

Updated On: 10/8/15 at 07:48 AM

LimelightMike Profile Photo
LimelightMike
#2FOOL FOR LOVE Reviews
Posted: 10/8/15 at 8:42am

Oops, double post.

 

Updated On: 10/8/15 at 08:42 AM

Jeffrey Karasarides Profile Photo
Jeffrey Karasarides
JBroadway Profile Photo
JBroadway
#4FOOL FOR LOVE Reviews
Posted: 10/8/15 at 11:03pm

I really enjoyed the show, and I'm happy to see it getting many positive reviews. I'm not one to gloat, but after all the hate the show gets on this board, I can't help but feel kind of validated in my appreciation for the production and performances. 

Updated On: 10/8/15 at 11:03 PM

PianoMann Profile Photo
PianoMann
#5FOOL FOR LOVE Reviews
Posted: 10/8/15 at 11:13pm

I have no idea what show Brantley saw, but I wish I was as captivated with Fool For Love as he.

CurtainsUpat8 Profile Photo
CurtainsUpat8
#6FOOL FOR LOVE Reviews
Posted: 10/9/15 at 8:43am

The review in the Times is so off base. This was one of the dullest evenings of theatre I have had in a long time. Nina Arianda is totally miscast in this.  Look at the photo in the NY Times. She looks like a super model. Look at her hair. Has she been in the beauty parlor all day? Look at her shoes? Are these the shoes of someone in the middle of a desolate desert town? Does she look like someone who is a product of this environment? I say no, she does not. Mr. B.B. states that Kathy Bates played the role originally. Now you can believe a young Kathy Bates in this role. I never got over Ms Arianda physical look. Yes, she is going on a date but she is utterly unbelievable.

Sam Rockwell is wonderful. But there is a lot of generic "Cowboy Talk" in this play and he is "saddled" with much of it. It's like a parody of itself. It sounds like a Christopher Durang parody at times.  He compares Gordon Joseph Weiss, who is the best thing in it, to a Greek Chorus. His character is very intertwined in the plot. A Greek chorus has no relationship with the actors onstage, they are just there to comment.

The little "box" (literally) of a set is too small for the stage. It makes us think we are looking at a 19 inch tv when we want, and have room for, a 42 inch tv. Yes, I get that these characters might be trapped where they are, but putting them in a stark little box of a set  is going overboard.

Ms Arianda is indeed a wonderful actress, but this reviewer has now put her in the category of EVERY role she ever plays he is going to give her a rave.
I was sitting in the first row of the Mezz and the action felt distant. Partly because of the set. But the first row of the Mezz should not be a bad seat to see a play. Maybe if I was in Row E center I might have enjoyed it more? I don't really know, but what I do know is that this play is not a masterpiece, and this production at 75 minutes seemed endless to me.

Roscoe
#7FOOL FOR LOVE Reviews
Posted: 10/9/15 at 9:21am

Actually Brantley gets it right -- it was an actress named Kathy Baker in the original production, not Kathy Bates.

 


"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/

JBroadway Profile Photo
JBroadway
#8FOOL FOR LOVE Reviews
Posted: 10/9/15 at 9:52am

CurtainsUpat8 said: "The review in the Times is so off base."

 

Or maybe he just has a different opinion than you?

CurtainsUpat8 Profile Photo
CurtainsUpat8
#9FOOL FOR LOVE Reviews
Posted: 10/9/15 at 10:16am

CurtainsUpat8 said: "The review in the Times is so off base."

 

Or maybe he just has a different opinion than you?


Yes of course he does. It's implied in my statement. I didn't say he wasn't allowed to have a different opinion, I said his opinion was off base. Have you seen the show yet?

And yes, I was incorrect. It was Kathy Baker, not Kathy Bates, My apologies for that.

JBroadway Profile Photo
JBroadway
#10FOOL FOR LOVE Reviews
Posted: 10/9/15 at 10:20am

Fair enough. To me, saying someone is "off-base" implies an inherent wrongness, as if your opposing opinion were the "base," but I guess I was just reading too much into it. Thanks for clarifying. 

 

Yes, as I said earlier in the thread, I have seen the show. 

Updated On: 10/9/15 at 10:20 AM

PianoMann Profile Photo
PianoMann
#11FOOL FOR LOVE Reviews
Posted: 10/9/15 at 1:27pm

I agree with most of the comments made by CurtainsUpat8. I do not agree about the size of the set, though. I thought the motel was too spacious, and therefore the production lacked necessary intimacy.  For those of you who have seen the Roundabout production of Therese Raquin, the apartment set is so physically stifling that it lends to and enhances the emotional turmoil taking place within.  The set for Fool For Love was so large that these characters had ample places to retreat and withdraw from each other, and I think that overall hindered the production. I know the Friedman has a very spacious stage and they really could have done some different things with the set design, but making the motel room bigger than it is at present is not one I would have pursued.

CurtainsUpat8 Profile Photo
CurtainsUpat8
#12FOOL FOR LOVE Reviews
Posted: 10/9/15 at 2:38pm

The set may have appeared smaller from the Mezz because I could see the top of it. There seemed to be a lot of extra/empty space on  Stage R and Stage L. But especially stage R because the one character was sitting stage left. That is why it appeared smaller. But in retrospect I see your point.

PianoMann Profile Photo
PianoMann
#13FOOL FOR LOVE Reviews
Posted: 10/9/15 at 4:05pm

You make a good point about perspective, though. I was in the first row of the orchestra and therefore couldn't see above the ceiling of the motel or much on the sides of the set. It makes sense that from the mezzanine, where you can actually see all of the space surrounding the set, that it would look like wasted space, or to borrow your simile from earlier, like a 19" television screen in a space big enough for a 42" screen. From my vantage point, though, it certainly looked way too big.

Melissa25 Profile Photo
Melissa25
#14FOOL FOR LOVE Reviews
Posted: 10/10/15 at 5:32am

I sat in the rear orchestra and also wondered if, had I sat closer, would I have enjoyed this more?  Perhaps but only because I respect these actors so much that it would have allowed me to focus more on them.  

 

I still would have left completely disappointed that my 120 minute commute to the show was more interesting than the 90 minute play itself.  

 

 

 

 

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BroadwayConcierge