{"id":4974,"date":"2010-10-24T21:50:51","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T01:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=4974"},"modified":"2010-10-24T21:51:32","modified_gmt":"2010-10-25T01:51:32","slug":"a-day-in-the-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=4974","title":{"rendered":"A day in the theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

I spent most of the afternoon in Manhattan, joining my parents for a Broadway matinee and dinner out to celebrate their anniversary. We went to see A Life in the Theatre<\/i>, which, despite the opportunity to see Patrick Stewart on stage, I really can’t at all recommend. I thought both he and T.R. Knight did the best they could with some very thin material, but I have to agree with Ben Brantley’s take on it<\/a>:<\/p>\n

At least as damaging is our impression that the relationship between the two men doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t evolve. A counterpoint between the irritable wistfulness of Robert \u00e2\u20ac\u201d eager to impart his skill to his younger confr\u00c3\u00a8re \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and the impatient heedlessness of John is established in the beginning, and any variation on that dichotomy is sparse. And in the scenes that find the actors in costume, in plays, they are as cartoonish as figures from Broadway satires in old television variety shows.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The show is kind of atypical of David Mamet, although there are a couple of c-words tossed in near the beginning, unfortunately, just to remind you whose play you’re watching.<\/p>\n

And would somebody tell me, when did standing ovations become something audiences did at the end of shows just as a matter of course, regardless of the show?<\/p>\n

Then we had dinner at Keens Steakhouse<\/a>, which was okay.<\/p>\n

Now I’m home and watching episodes of Fringe<\/i> — seriously, when did this show get good<\/i>? — and trying to finish the Sunday crossword puzzle. I think I’m going to be more successful at the former than the latter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spent most of the afternoon in Manhattan, joining my parents for a Broadway matinee and dinner out to celebrate their anniversary. We went to see A Life in the Theatre, which, despite the opportunity to see Patrick Stewart on stage, I really can’t at all recommend. I thought both he and T.R. Knight did … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[54,28,45,17],"class_list":["post-4974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-new-york","tag-personal","tag-theater","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4974"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}