On Apr 19, 2:36 pm, Robert Bouton <mprov...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> I'd suggest moving to New York, although I bet a lot of people envy your
living in
> the Seattle area.
Fortunately there's plenty of theatre in Seattle besides the Rep under
Esbjornsen, and he's moving on next year. There is Bartlett Sher and
Craig Lucas's Intiman Theatre, for example, producing such fresh and
stimulating new work as A LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA. Also, the Fifth
Avenue, the Paramount, the VIllage -- just to name other local
theatres specializing in musicals.
I just saw the Rep's A CURE AT TROY yesterday, a dull, wordy, and
untheatrical adaptation from Sophocles by Seamus Haney. Uber-trendy
director Tina Landau created a crisp post-modern production that
looked good and moved well, but the play itself is awfully weak. I
left the theatre wondering why, with all the riches of Greek mythology
at his disposal, Haney chose as his theme one of the least interesting
footnotes to the Trojan War.
The language of the play -- always called "poetic" as we're reminded
that Haney won the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature -- was quite a
disappointment. A discordant melange of stilted poeticism, awkward
modern slang, and threadbare cliches, it didn't work for me on any
level.
"Odysseus is head and shoulders above the other Greeks." If that's
poetry, I'm Paris Hilton. As a writer, I'd slit my wrist before I
commited such a cliche to paper ... and there were many, many more
like that in the play.
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