8/16/03
Despite the recent blackout in NYC, I want to go to a play on off-Broadway. In fact, I read a review of "Matt & Ben" in a Vancouver newspaper and decided that it was definitely a play worth seeing.
Why?
Well, any play that the New York Times says this about can't be all bad: "This is a sharp script, and it delivers its cleverness mostly without nudging you in the ribs. And in the end it's unsentimental and smart about long friendships, too; when you're not looking they tend to tiptoe right up to enmity."
Not only that, but the play has a classic line that has been quoted in most reviews and that most thinking adults will agree with: "David Schwimmer is a terrible actor with one expression, and he looks like a mushroom."
What's "Matt & Ben" about and who are the Matt and Ben of the title?
Anyone who's read at least one tabloid in the past six months will have no problem answering the second question. Yes, the dynamic duo are Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, the Dartmouth roomies who struck it rich with Good Will Hunting.
In "Matt & Ben" playwrights Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers, college classmates of the dynamic duo, portray their better-known counterparts as they try to turn Catcher in the Rye into a film. Abruptly the script for Good Will lands in their lap. With a Hollywood flourish, they're off to stardom, never realizing that they aren't the wonder boys they imagine themselves to be.
Curiously, both Matt and Ben are played by Kaling and Withers--two determined and viciously accurate women--who are reported to cut to the bone in their incisive script. Not only do they skewer the title duo but also many of Hollywood's other targets.
All in all, I really want to see this play because I'm unable to resist a production that garners this last line in a review: "Over time, Matt & Ben may end up faring better, revenues-wise, than Gigli and Jersey Girl combined."
As the saying goes, "What's not to like?" with this play. I just wish I were there to share some of the humor.
For another NYTimes look at Matt & Ben see this.
7/12/03
"Lobster Alice" at the B Street Theater in Sacto is an absolutely wonderful play. The action is set in the office of an animator in the Disney Studios after Fantasia bombed at the box office, when Walt was planning another music-based illustrated film and conscripted Salvador Dali to provide the art for one of the segments. (The premise is true, by the way.) The overworked and underimaginative illustrator who is given the task of working with Dali is appalled when his assistant Alice becomes enraptured with the flamboyant artist.
Soon the illustrator's creative eye is opened not only to Dali's concept for the 14-minute segment but also to Alice's beauty, wit, and charm. At the same time, ideas for another little project the illustrator is working on (the film version of Alice in Wonderland) are born.
William McNulty (Dali) portrays the delightfully eccentric artist. His monologue as he describes his plan for the music sequence rivits the audience, catching Dali's genius perfectly.
Jason Kuykendall paints the more literal-bound illustrator Finch as a man tormented by his wish to be wildly creative while being tied to a job and deadlines. His disintegration into Dali's vision as the play progresses reminds us that a little artistic license in our lives can result in glorious havoc.
Dana Brooke's Alice becomes the surreal mortar binding the conservative Finch and the earthy Dali. Her mix of almost childlike innocence and adult longing cut to the heart of our dreams, showing us that our fantasies, in the end, center us and make us whole.
Ultimately "Lobster Alice" is one of those plays that bears seeing at least twice--once for the first visceral thrill and then for the parsing together of its parts.
To see "Lobster Alice" is to understand why live theater is so much fun.
--Pat Phillips