I hoping reviews can save this production - but it might not be enough.
"Oh look at the time, three more intelligent plays just closed and THE ADDAMS FAMILY made another million dollars" -Jackie Hoffman, Broadway.com Audience Awards
haterobics said: "Will this be the first Isherwood Off-Broadway review that gets Brantleyed on Broadway?
"
There's no guarantee Brantley will be the one to review it.
"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
Saw this off'-b'way, and thought immediately: "This is a show which would've run 2-3 years off'-B'way back in the day." It's touched a chord in many people. The posts about it were impassioned. In 2017, B'way is a different challenge. But this play has a charming central performance and wonderful company. If the nut is reasonable, it could build.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
I enjoyed it, but does anyone else think it would've carried more emotional weight if the lead character was 10 years older - 39 rather than 29. I had a hard time believing his desperation for a relationship at 29.
Since I know there is a paywall, here's a single passage from the review:
Since “Significant Other” made it well past intermission without showing any signs of becoming unpredictable, it seemed safe to assume that it would remain so to the finish line. But halfway through the second act, it suddenly metamorphoses into a different play with the same characters, a dead-serious look at the problem of being a lonely singleton in a world full of hurtfully contented couples. The gears shift when Jordan confronts Laura at her bachelorette party, angrily telling her that she has deserted him for her fiancé and that “your wedding is my funeral….it somehow enshrines the officially non-existent role I’ll play in your life from now on except as occasional court jester and pitiable reminder of what happens to people who never find someone.” Yes, it’s unfair, but Jordan believes it, and his desperation is so palpable that you can’t help but sympathize—as does Laura, who never saw it coming. From this moment on, the cliché tap is shut off and every character in “Significant Other” becomes touchingly real, the way they should have been all along. Nor does Mr. Harmon, to his infinite credit, cheat the audience at evening’s end: I mustn’t give away the curtain, but suffice it to say that what happens (or, rather, doesn’t happen) is powerfully true to the mature sense of life’s limitations that Jordan has acquired at long last.
" Very funny and ultimately poignant...Significant Other tells a very entertaining and consummately human story. It’s witty and sensitive, and it will leave you thinking about the old friends you left behind in an earlier chapter of your own life, whether you were ready to or not." Deb Miller. DCMetroTheaterArts
"I'm disappointed that Brantley didn't like it, though not surprised. It's not really written for people his age."
Really? I thought it seemed to be written for people of any age who think sitcoms are smart entertainment, (particularly older, straight people). Personally, I found it to be inane beyond endurance.
Anshel 2 you make a good point. I'm basically Glick's character several years later and the results aren't pretty. I think I'll simultaneously love and hate this play.
newintown said: ""I'm disappointed that Brantley didn't like it, though not surprised. It's not really written for people his age."
Really? I thought it seemed to be written for people of any age who think sitcoms are smart entertainment, (particularly older, straight people). Personally, I found it to be inane beyond endurance."
I think you just answered your own question, didn't you?
"I think you just answered your own question, didn't you?"
I don't think so; the night I saw it the people enjoying it most seemed to be the aged white folks who looked like the Manhattan Theatre Club subscribers. I thought it was written for them. (And Brantley isn't very far from that demographic.)
I know the majority of the characters in the play are in their 20s; however, I wouldn't say it was written for a young audience. It's a dusty piece of triteness. Or maybe that's what you mean? That Brantley is too young to enjoy it?
I know the majority of the characters in the play are in their 20s; however, I wouldn't say it was written for a young audience.
They're definitely marketing it towards a young audience, though. And as someone who is in the target demographic (young, gay, urban, etc), I found it insufferable.
"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
An interesting (mildly self-righteous) review from Towleroad:
"Jordan’s extreme thirst is consistently played for laughs. Rather than digging into the underlying causes of his fears and insecurities as a queer person (a subject this recent HuffPo feature mines to compelling effect), the production presents Jordan as a sort minstrel of gay neuroses and delusion. He details his deep, carnal desire for the hot guy at his office pool party, and the crowd goes wild. He jokes about suicide, and it’s nothing more than a punch line — that lands."
And the dark article they link to in the Huffington Post:
"For years I’ve noticed the divergence between my straight friends and my gay friends. While one half of my social circle has disappeared into relationships, kids and suburbs, the other has struggled through isolation and anxiety, hard drugs and risky sex."
Interesting- I've yet to see the show on Broadway (and this can't say how it feels in a bigger house with a bigger audience) but I did not get that vibe from the play at all, and I'm a 20-something gay man in New York. I do think the play misses something by having Jordan abstain from hookup culture (not that there aren't gay men who abstain, but it's an odd note that it's barely mentioned), but overall I think the play is a great representation of the loneliness that the HuffPo article is talking about. The article is more about problems making queer friends, but I think it can extend to Jordan and his straight female friends as well.
I am a firm believer in serendipity- all the random pieces coming together in one wonderful moment, when suddenly you see what their purpose was all along.
Though I largely enjoyed the play off-Broadway, my misgivings are similar to those in the Towelroad review. I think Harmon isolates Jordan so thoroughly from the rest of queer life to a surprising degree and it is hard for me to discern whether or not that is the point or merely a contrivance to make this thing go. The character is fixated on a monogamous heteronormative relationship to the point of being blinkered, while also having no queer friends, having no willingness to consider other relationship options, and being dismissive of many facets of gay culture.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
Variety, time out New York, EW, and Hollywood reporter really seemed to love it.
The major takeaway from what I read was Gideon Glick's performance was stellar and star turning. Good for him. I thought He deserves it. Hope he gets the tony recognition.