THE LAST MATCH at Roundabout

[wolfwriter]

Posted: 9/30/17 at 12:12am

I thought there was a thread for this, but I can’t seem to find it.

After the grand revival of Time and the Conways, Roundabout returns to form, with 100 slow, pointless, painful minutes. I can’t recall the last time I looked at my watch so many times.

I have not seen any of Anna Ziegler's other work, but, if this is representative, I don’t want to. Her writing is simply atrocious. Her dialogue is unreal and inorganic. I kept expecting the playwright to pop up at the back of the stage to shout "yep, I wrote that."

From what I gather, the play, set during a semi-final match at the US Open tennis championship, is a metaphor for tennis as life, but comes across as another example of 'tell-don't-show' theater.

For me, I'm sick of authors wasting my time with nothing but exposition, thinking they've written a great and profound play. If I want exposition, I’ll read a novel. I wish theaters were more discerning before mounting productions of this tedium.

There’s no point in spoilers because there’s nothing to spoil. The two main characters spend almost the entire play narrating, telling & addressing the audience. There are brief moments of 'showing' but they're too few and far between to make any impact. Even when the two men are playing tennis, their dialogue is still telling us what’s going on.

The set is simple but effective. The lighting is fine. The actors are average and fine, but they aren't given much to work with, so when the female Russian character reminded us of Natasha from Rocky & Bullwinkle, it's not surprising, but, like the rest of this dreadful, dull mess, it’s frustrating.

I hated every minute of this and would have left if there had been an intermission.

[uncageg]

Posted: 9/30/17 at 12:21am

I hope this is not the consensus across the board. I have been very interested in seeing this.

[wolfwriter]

Posted: 9/30/17 at 12:27am

I just, now, went back and looked at the reviews from the Old Globe production and I found one unflattering and the rest were very positive. There were a good number of empty seats tonight and numerous folks asleep, eating candy etc.

My companion, who loves tennis, even more than I do, hated the play more than I did, but hopefully, we're the exception and you get to enjoy it.

[uncageg]

Posted: 9/30/17 at 12:56am

I am also a big tennis fan. Went to the US Open this year for the first time and saw Venus play. So I have an interest in this play. Also, their discount tickets are a bit more than I expected.

Updated On: 10/31/17 at 12:56 AM

[KJisgroovy]

Posted: 9/30/17 at 1:39am

Serena wasn't at the US Open this year.

Too bad about the play, it sounded promising!

[wolfwriter]

Posted: 9/30/17 at 7:41am

uncageg said: "I am also a big tennos fan. Went to the US Open this year for the first time and saw Serena play. So I have an interest in this play. Also, their discount tickets are a bit more than I expected."

Glad you got to see the Open in person. There are a few dates for the show, listed on TDF. That might be a less expensive way to go. There's really not a bad seat in the theater and the show is entirely staged in the center. Hope you enjoy, if you go. 

[lyceum]

Posted: 9/30/17 at 2:41pm

Saw this last night an have to say it was one of the worst, most tedious plays I've ever had the misfortune of seeing. If you like tennis this play will make you hate tennis. If you like theater this play will make you hate theater.

The whole show is two characters narrating a tennis match in first-person present tense while occasionally flailing their empty hands around while tennis noises play. This show is full of nothing but hollow new-age intellectual affirmationism and vile contempt for the unlucky people who paid to see it.

This play is so bad that in 100 minutes it made me regret my chosen profession. I can't imagine the person at Roundabout who decided this was a worthwhile expense for their struggling company. 

[JBroadway]

Posted: 9/30/17 at 4:35pm

I saw the play this afternoon. I agree with a lot of the criticisms already mentioned, but I didn't hate it quite as much as others have.

It's highly flawed to be sure - my attention wavered in and out the whole time, and the "tell don't show" structure that the OP mentioned did indeed get really tiresome really fast.

Having said that, I think there was enough emotional honesty, and enough cohesion between the content and the form, that it felt like a worthwhile endeavor as a whole. Yes, she hit us over the head, but at least she had something to hit us over the head with. So often I see plays and just think "it wasn't bad, but why did you bother? What was the point?" And here i felt like there was a point. I felt for the characters, and I think the use of Tennis as a means of exploring the psychology of athletes, and of people in general, was effective. 

Personally, I walked away falling more on the positive side of this than the negative, but just barely. It's far from a great piece of theatre, and I'm not surprised others have hated it more than I did. 

[RippedMan]

Posted: 9/30/17 at 5:02pm

Looks like it was in the round in Cali and prob worked better that way. 

[Alfie6]

Posted: 9/30/17 at 9:37pm

I was there the other night and agree with JBroadway, I am a little on the fence but didn't hate it and leaned more towards positive despite the flaws. As a positive I liked the sparse set a lot, although if you are sitting on top you will probably miss the two giant scoreboards on either side of the house and the female characters who keep pacing around the far sides and into the orchestra. I thought the scenes with the tennis players and their significant others were a lot more interesting then the scenes with the two males playing on the court. I know absolutely nothing about tennis and this play assumes you have some basic knowledge about the sport. I guess it's my fault for not googling the sport before attending since it was like sitting through an opera with no sub titles. I got the main idea of what was happening but some stuff went over my head. My biggest issue with the play is that we find out early on what tennis means to both players and how their lives depend on the game but it's a one-trick-pony and that's about it for the rest of the play. 45 minutes in I was like yes I get it tennis means a lot to you this has been explained over and over and over can we just move on please. I will say as another positive the choreography of the two players playing was nicely done.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 9/30/17 at 9:48pm

Sounds like another DEUCE and I could hardly tolerate that one.

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 10/1/17 at 2:28am

I will write more tomorrow. For now I will say that I thought the play was mostly fine and mildly entertaining. All the humor didn't work but some of it did. I preferred the Sergei/Galina couple even if their accents were slippery and they were more... goofy and obvious. At least they were entertaining. I also struggled with how much the play was "telling" to the point where it seemed to made up of endless monologues even when characters were in conversation with each other. But my big issue was the Mallory character. She was all right at first but the more lines she got the more I disliked her and when they really started in on the baby stuff I began to turn on her and the play became exhausting from then on (thankfully it was already near the end). I can't believe a female playwright wrote a female character like that. I couldn't even say I hated her because that implies she was well written enough for me to have strong feelings about her. I was more aggravated at the laziness of how she was written and everything horrible that it borrowed from. 

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 10/22/17 at 11:58am

Updated On: 11/15/17 at 11:58 AM

[Ado Annie D'Ysquith]

Posted: 10/23/17 at 10:46am

Golly, isn't it amazing what theatre can do? How it can make one person say "awful writing" and another say "great writing" for the exact same piece? It's all about perspective I guess...

[uncageg]

Posted: 10/23/17 at 10:51am

KJisgroovy said: "Serena wasn't at the US Open this year.

Too bad about the play, it sounded promising!"

 

I just now realized I typed Srena! She was a bit pregnant! I saw Venus play.

 

Updated On: 10/23/17 at 10:51 AM

[little_sally]

Posted: 10/31/17 at 11:10am

This was one of the worst things I've ever seen. This isn't a play. This is two actors narrating a tennis match. The scenes in between with the female characters are too cliched to provide any relief. It's just so tedious, and Ziegler has nothing new to say.

Also, the whole conceit of young player vs. veteran doesn't work when both actors look about the same age.