Hey, hey -- midweek theatre debauchery two weeks in a row! Tonight's performance: Part 1 of the Intiman Theatre's production of Tony Kushner's Angels In America.
The play is long (3 hours) and complicated (the reviews in the Seattle Times and Seattle Met lay it out pretty well, with at least one typo) and I'm not sure what I think of it -- both substantively, in terms of the themes it addresses, and technically, as a piece of theatre. I know it's a darling of the critics and won lots of awards, and so the artsy-fartsy in me wants to like it.
But I didn't. At least not quite. It's ambitious and full of colorful characters, and there's a fair amount of humor to balance the heavy stuff. But nothing in the depiction of Mormonism in the play rings true to me, and in terms of dialogue around complicated issues/relationships, I think I'd rather see a play by Neil Simon or David Ives or Noel Coward or Harold Pinter. Plus, the director had made some poor blocking decisions that detracted from some scenes that otherwise could have been pretty strong.
In any event, I'm seeing Part 2 tomorrow night (3.5 more hours!), and rumor has it that's the better half. So I'm curious to see if they win me over in the end.
1 comment:
That's a long time to sit through something that's not fabulous...
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