A play about a modern-day Slave

...with a company I really love and would love to work with at a Soho space. It was workshop-level, maybe a little more than that, but even so, it was weak, I thought. It definitely fit into the "strange" part of the host theater's "Funny, Strange, Provocative." At points it was provocative, too.

It was...the TIMING was off. Both of the direction but ALSO of the play itself. Usually when I read a play I "play it forward" and see the production. Tonight I was playing the production backward and seeing the script...and it felt like a screenplay, with "shots" built in that had to be accomodated, scenes that didn't build or give enough information, scenes that felt like non-sequiturs. Which is different than Tina Landau's/Madeline L'Engle's concept of the Tesseract, one I wholeheartedly embrace.

I know that some of the weirdness was inherent to the project being set forth by this author...you have a kid played by an adult running around in a dog suit, you're not an Aristotle Acolyte. Of course. And no reason you should be. But even trying to meet this play on its own terms, it felt like the playwright (and maybe playwright/director) hadn't spent enough time with it, thinking it through, playing with it. This felt like a sculpture put together with toothpaste and silly string, falling apart when you add glitter.

This was NOT a well-crafted play. Which is a damn shame, because the playwright really WAS taking on some fascinating issues/power dynamics/human relationships. Which should be applauded. I mean, this writer was, on some level, aiming the humor gun straight at race, class, and power -- exactly what I was arguing for in my last post. But. It wasn't landing.

And it wasn't landing because of CRAFT. Because (I'm guessing) not enough time, patience, care were taken. Which makes me sad. And is a fair warning to take TIME with a play before throwing it into the glare of the spotlight. There's no going back at that point.

I dunno. Maybe after this production the playwright will go back to the drawing board. I think that this could turn into something really special. It's just not there yet. Or maybe I'm wrong and silly string is what the playwright was going for.