A Day in the Death of Joe Egg
A Day in the Death of Joe Egg
Joined: 12/31/69
#1A Day in the Death of Joe Egg
Posted: 4/10/14 at 11:13pm
Hello,
I've had the opportunity to see two versions of this show that were preserved and I was just wondering what people's views were on the show.
Also, did anyone see both Roundabout revivals? What were your thoughts on those?
I personally think the show is devastating, but I do enjoy the writing very much. Hope to hear your seasoned critiques! Thanks!
peerrjb
Featured Actor Joined: 7/7/09
#2A Day in the Death of Joe Egg
Posted: 4/11/14 at 5:08amZena Walker won the Tony for the first B'way go-round. Stockard Channing SHOULD have won for the revival. It is a mesmerizing and powerful play, and probably too well-made and frightening for contemporary audiences who think that pieces by Terrance MacNally are cutting-edge.
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#2A Day in the Death of Joe Egg
Posted: 4/11/14 at 5:20am
"I personally think the show is devastating, but I do enjoy the writing very much."
I don't mean for this to sound snarky. I just don't understand. Do you mean "devastating" as a compliment?. Because if you mean it as a criticism, why is there a "but" in that sentence?
#3A Day in the Death of Joe Egg
Posted: 4/13/14 at 12:04am
If I had to guess, I think the OP was using the term "devastating" to mean "emotionally upsetting."
From what I've read of the play, I don't intend to see it. Some movies and plays are so upsetting that individuals who suffer from depression (such as myself) may want to avoid them. My "too dangerous" categories include stories where disability has destroyed a family ("Joe Egg" falls in this category), just about any Holocaust movie (my father was a refugee and we lost family members), stories involving child or animal abuse, stories involving the death of children or animals, and, possibly, "Twelve Years a Slave," the last of which I'm still mulling over.
Audrey, the Phantom Phanatic, who nonetheless would rather be Jean Valjean, who knew how to make lemonade out of lemons.
#4A Day in the Death of Joe Egg
Posted: 4/13/14 at 10:02am
Stockard Channing did win the Tony for the 1985 revival, peerrjb.
I thought the 2003 revival with Eddie Izzard and Victoria Hamilton was fantastic, and would have given Izzard the Tony over Brian Dennehy (great as that production of LONG DAY'S JOURNEY was).
"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
#5A Day in the Death of Joe Egg
Posted: 4/13/14 at 6:48pm
I saw a student production about 4 decades ago at Florida State University. The female lead was played by grad student, Christine Lahti.
And, yes, it was devastating--in the good way.
