I haven't heard anything. But I did see the play. It's enjoyable enough. I can't imagine it making a serious run on Broadway. It could do well at Signature, the Public... Even before that it needs some work. The second act is long and meandering. Analisa Velez and John Scurti are both terrific!
Susanswerphone said: "I haven't heard anything. But I did see the play. It's enjoyable enough. I can't imagine it making a serious run on Broadway. It could do well at Signature, the Public... Even before that it needs some work. The second act is long and meandering. Analisa Velez and John Scurti are both terrific!"
I agree with you. Though enjoyable, for me, in parts, I was more disappointing given the love letters it received by the local critics. Definitely meandering, to say the least, and agree that much more work is needed for even an off-Broadway run. Glad you highlighted John Scurti-- I saw in his bio that this was his first professional theater debut and it was impressive. Difficult to avoid a cliched characterization and he did. The entire cast was terrific. I had previously been impressed with Billy Porter's directing talents when the did "Top Dog/Underdog" for the Huntington but there he had an, obviously, much stronger text. He coaxes some terrific performances in the Purists and does a nice staging, but the text's dramatic impetus just goes south on him. Hats off the Huntington for continuing to champion new works. If anything, however, should make the transfer from the Huntington to NY, it should be, imho, (with some minor tweaks) last season's Michael Greif directed "Man In The Ring" (written by Michael Cristofer)-- a much more fully-realized and satisfying work with, coincidently, some overlapping themes. I'm headed over to see "Choir Boy" at the Speakeasy in a few weeks--so disappointed that I could not get to it in NY with Pope's thundering performance and am interested to see McCraney's handling of some of the same themes that are presented in the aforesaid works. Together they present an interesting dramatic triumvirate with all three also substantially integrating music into a non-musical. I note also that two of the three playwrights are white. Another interesting pondering (for me) of who gets to tell the story and does it/should it matter?
joined:6/29/19
joined:
6/29/19
Posted: 9/16/19 at 2:32pm