THE COMMON PURSUIT

[Pammylicious]

Posted: 5/8/12 at 5:04pm

No thread on previews for this play. I have tickets for tomorrow's matinee. Anyone see it yet?

[Pammylicious]

Posted: 5/9/12 at 4:06pm

Well, I went today and I wish I didn't. Walked out after the 1st act. It was painfully boring, the overacting was horrendous. It was just God awful. I would say 1/2 of the audience walked out and thought the same thing.

[broadfan327]

Posted: 5/9/12 at 4:40pm

I went last night. I liked it more than you did, but it was only good, not great. My whole row walked out at intermission, but most everyone else in the theater remained for the second act.

[Sauja]

Posted: 5/9/12 at 5:14pm

A shame people are leaving after the first act. I can see why some less patient theatergoers might not be fully drawn in, but I found the show to be incredibly winning and thought it paid off beautifully in the second act.

Lucas Near-Verbrugghe, ordinarily wonderful, does seem to be a bit adrift in this, and Josh Cooke is miscast as Stuart. But I thought Jacob Fishel as Martin and Tim McGeever as Humphry gave wonderful performances.

It's a quiet, thoughtful show with a somewhat slow first act, but I think in the end it's a very good play being given a solid (if not wonderful) production.

[Pammylicious]

Posted: 5/9/12 at 7:02pm

It's a 2 1/2 hour production, way too long. I usually never walk out during intermission, this is the third time I've done it in 30 years. Why should I be forced to stay if I am hating it?

Some guy behind he was snoring so loud, the entire audience cracked up from it.

[After Eight]

Posted: 5/10/12 at 12:03am

Simon Gray has written good plays that haven't aged that well. This is one of them, but it's still literate and worth seeing.

It treads the familiar path of university friends whose ideals and aspirations are subjected to life's vagaries. It's well-written, but slightly soap-operaish, and has a surprise twist (that is a bit of a cheat in the author's part, since in no way is it plausibly set up.)

The main problem, as in many of these tales, is that it is hard to believe that this group would have been friends in the first place, much less remain so later in life.

I thought Jacob Fishel was excellent, and the design evocative.

[dexter3]

Posted: 5/10/12 at 1:13am

I walked out too, probably the 2nd or 3rd time ever. My problem is that I just didn't care about a single character in the show. I wasn't invested in their stories, and I didn't care about anything they were talking about.

The show is just flat...it's trying to hard to be as comedy, when it's really just a soap opera for intellectual people who study poetry. Without any heart.

Randomly, I think Moises Kaufman is not at fault. I think he's trying his hardest to divert us from the lame material by constantly changing the blocking and trying to make the characters more dynamic, but it just comes off as (as someone put it before) "overacting".

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 10:47pm

Saw this tonight, and I can understand people wanting to walk out at intermission. I certainly wanted to. The play and production were like a basketball team down 20 points at the half, and then Bob Knight came in with a speech that scared the crap out of the players and they rallied back to win the game. Act two is a complete turnaround in pace, characterization and caliber of performance.

A friend described the show as Merrily in reverse, and that's pretty apt. The show is SO boring when it's all good in the beginning. Act one is just a long, tedious set-up for the soapy drama of act two.

dexter- I disagree with you; Kaufman is definitely to blame for the sluggish pacing and not working on some of the performances. Lucas Near-Verbrugghe, who was so funny in Bloody, Bloody, was kind of awful in this and Kaufman needs to reign in the performance.

If Roundabout wants to revive these flawed plays that haven't aged well they need to be executed with perfect direction and a skilled cast of actors who can compensate for the creaks with their performances. This production unfortunately doesn't do that.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 12:56am

Is it beautifully designed? I feel like all of Kaufman's shows have a great sense of design.

After Eight - " it's still literate" - Not sure that's a reason to want to see a show? but okay.

[After Eight]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 7:20am

Ripped Man,

Why not? Considering the abysmal level of writing encountered in plays nowadays --the ghastly Sons of the Prophet being the most flagrant example--the prospect of seeing something literate is like finding an oasis in the desert.

Updated On: 6/9/12 at 07:20 AM

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 9:29am

RippedMan- It was beautifully designed, and I think Kaufman spent all of his directorial energies choreographing the scene changes, which are indeed impressive.

After Eight- Even taking into account that Common Pursuit hasn't aged well, Sons of the Prophet is a much better written play, and certainly isn't about such generic subject material. You yourself mentioned that we've seen these characters and scenarios all before. At least Sons of the Prophet was a breath of fresh air last season. Roundabout should focus their energies at the Laura Pels and Black Box Theaters to putting on more "Sons of the Prophets" and fewer "Common Pursuits."

[Broadway Joe]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 9:46am

I'm glad I'm not the only one who hated Sons of the Prophet cause everyone around here seems to love it.

I just posted this in the Tony predictions thread but it fits here as well.

Sons of the Prophet was one of the worst plays I've ever seen. I've never walked out of a show before but if that show had an intermission I would have walked out.

[After Eight]

Posted: 5/17/12 at 9:53am

Updated On: 6/9/12 at 09:53 AM