On Three Kinds of Theater

I'm a tough audience.  I think most theater people are...of ANYbody, we're the most easily bored, sometimes the least willing to pay much for our tickets, and we bring, usually, a sense of "been there, done that" with us when we enter the space.

That said, I would also argue that we're more thrilled than anyone by good work, that we're the first to spot it, and that we'll think about it the longest, once we've seen it.  It may be a weird mix of work and play, but we LOVE to see good work.

I've seen some good work lately.  I wanted to mention three shows in particular: Black Watch, 4000 Miles, and Quick and Dirty.

The experience of these shows couldn't have been more different.

Black Watch was a HUUUUUGE hit, circling around for a return engagement at the cavernous Saint Ann's Warehouse in DUMBO.  I shelled out full ticket price for K and I to see this one, because there was no alternative.  And I was glad I did.
The show was loud -- so loud I covered my ears a lot of the time.  It was about the Scottish Highland Regiment in Iraq, and was set both there and in a pub in Scotland.  What I loved about the show was its ambition -- everything about it was loud and big and athletic and robust.  It used its set and props in surprising ways, in that kind of "object play" where a pool table becomes a trojan horse (with someone cutting up through its fabric to make an entrance) becomes an army tank...where entrances and exits are full-throttle, where everything happens with the kind of velocity that keeps your adrenaline up...wholly appropriate, I thought, for a war play.

4,000 Miles was another new play, this time at Lincoln Center's LCT3 stage.  I don't remember the last time I saw that meticulous a recreation of an apartment onstage...and the show, like the set, relied on the kind of watch-them-blink realism that I tend to associate with Chicago theater...although this was a New York playwright, the lovely and talented Amy Herzog.  Given how true-to-life the play was, the staging made tons of sense.  Amy is very, very good at letting us watch characters live in a space...hers isn't the set-up pay-off answer-the-question style in which I've been trained...there's a bit more breathing room, a bit more "this is how people are."  That really came across.

Finally, last night I saw Braden Lubell's "Quick and Dirty" at a tiiiiiiiiiiny broooooooooke theater in faaaaaaaaaar Williamsburg.  The set consisted of about twelve planks that had been used to create a bar, six or so bar stools, and folding chairs across the back, where all the actors sat and watched the action.  Light and sound were minimal.  Most scenes involved two, maybe three characters.  Several of us were sitting on the floor to watch.  But the acting and writing were solid and supported each other, and the simplicity of it was a good reminder that you can have a moving experience without bells, whistles, an expensive set...that ultimately, theater is about getting people in the room and telling them a good story.

I feel privileged to have seen all three productions.