The impetus for reading this is that a new film adaptation was just announced starring 'babygirl'-of-the-moment Nicholas Galitzine, 3.5, rounded down.
The impetus for reading this is that a new film adaptation was just announced starring 'babygirl'-of-the-moment Nicholas Galitzine, non-binary actor Emma Corrin, music icon Charli XCX, and scream queen Maika Monroe -so that sounded intriguing. The graphic novel is weird and a little off-putting in places, and it's NOT something I would immediately think of as being great material for a film adaptation - but we'll reserve judgment till it appears.
The plot revolves around a man who bets his friend that he cannot seduce his virtuous and virginal wife, Cherry, if he leaves them alone for 100 nights. Unbeknownst to him, Cherry is in love with her storytelling maid, Hero, who - Scheherazade-like, spins tale that keep him pre-occupied from winning the bet. The bulk of the book is thus 4 or 5 of the tales that she tells, all of which coalesce to a satisfying conclusion....more
This got decidedly mixed reviews when it premiered in London a few months back, and one can see why. Although fitfully amusing and w3.5, rounded down.
This got decidedly mixed reviews when it premiered in London a few months back, and one can see why. Although fitfully amusing and with well-delineated characters and sharp dialogue, it just doesn't add up to much.
Although I'd BEEN meaning to read this since its initial publication, I didn't get around to it until the prequel/sequel, Wandering Stars made the BooAlthough I'd BEEN meaning to read this since its initial publication, I didn't get around to it until the prequel/sequel, Wandering Stars made the Booker longlist - then figured I would need to read it to understand that. I read the beginning section of WS first, so that I could get the story in chronological order - which somewhat helped - but then by the time I had finished There There, I needed to go back and reread what I had already read in the second book anyway - mind like a sieve.
Anyway - the main thing of interest for me here is that I grew up and still live about 10 miles away from Oakland - which is where most of the book is set - and the locales mentioned - the Coliseum, Grand Lake Theatre, Moraga, etc. - are all quite familiar to me. Yet, the milieu of these Native American characters is as foreign to me as if they lived on another continent - so it WAS quite the eye-opener.
I had some difficulties keeping everyone and their relationships straight - there are a dozen major characters and that many more minor ones - luckily, there is a cast of characters list (indispensable!) that I had to keep referring back to - and it didn't help that so many characters' names are similar: Tony and Tommy, Orvil and Octavio, Carlos and Charles - nor that many of the relationships are not readily apparent (i.e., several characters are adopted and/or not aware of their real parentage).
The structure of the book was also often off-putting - switching not only character POV frequently, but also veering from first person to third and back again. And giving away the ending halfway through the book also did it no favors - why steal your own thunder? Knowing what was coming diffused any tension there might have been.
So it was not a particularly easy, nor at times pleasant read (the whole spider leg mishegoss I could have done without!), and the (spoiler alert!) ending bloodbath, although undoubtedly effective, was something I didn't really 'enjoy' reading. Still, there's no denying Orange has talent, and I am grudgingly grateful to have gotten a glimpse into this world. Back to book two ......more
Really enjoyed this bleak look at civilization crumbling in the after math of - well, we're really never sure WHAT - which is actually4.5, rounded up.
Really enjoyed this bleak look at civilization crumbling in the after math of - well, we're really never sure WHAT - which is actually one of the things I liked about it; that you are given little pieces of information about what has occurred previously, but not an explicit explanation - so the resultant horrors are just that much scarier. Steel has such an assured grasp of dramatics, trenchant dialogue, and fully inhabited characters, that one is astounded this is her debut work. The ending - which elicited gasps at some performances, is both startling and exactly apt. It premiered in a site-specific production in the unused tunnels underneath the rail lines at Waterloo Station, which I think would be an ideal situation - wish I had seen it.
This debut play has had quite the resounding success in NY, playing a lengthy extended run off-Broadway, before moving to the Great White Way itself, This debut play has had quite the resounding success in NY, playing a lengthy extended run off-Broadway, before moving to the Great White Way itself, where it is currently running. The premise sounded intriguing, and the fact it is set in the Bay Area, where I am from, made it a must read. It concerns a young employee at a tech company (that is pretty clearly Google), who has been mandated to see a therapist after she has a freak-out at work that is captured by her co-workers and has become a viral sensation; he needs to sign-off that she is stable enough to go back to work.
For a first effort, it is very accomplished and both characters are given meaty stuff with which to work. Still, for a brisk 80-minute run-time, the play feels a bit 'padded', and there are some clunky passages that don't ring true-to-life. And all the surrealistic touches (at one point the shrink inexplicably spouts off some indecipherable Russian for no apparent reason!) really need to be ditched. And once what the play is 'really' about becomes apparent, it just leaves you with an 'ooky' feeling - you want to go soak your brain in a soothing bath! Still, would love to see how this works in production.
BJ-J continues to be one of the most interesting and provocative contemporary US playwrights - and this recent addition to his canon d4.5, rounded up.
BJ-J continues to be one of the most interesting and provocative contemporary US playwrights - and this recent addition to his canon doesn't belie that label. Critics, perhaps unfairly, called it a 'Big Chill' update, and it does tread over some familiar ground in depicting the 20th reunion of a group of diverse HS chums. But it also is ultra-contemporary, depicting especially how the last five years with the twin disasters of Covid and DJT have undermined the progress made in the first decade of the new millennium.
Two things I am not QUITE sure about are the use of Death 'inhabiting' each character in turn - although I suspect that works better in performance than on the page (apparently, the2023 Chicago premiere utilized some vocal pyrotechnics to delineate when the characters are 'possessed') - and the character of Simon remaining an off-stage voice: since he has one rather longish scene with Emilio late in the play, I think I would opt for having him either on the side of the stage or at least as a video presence.
One intriguing thing I liked is that all the characters had belonged to a school group they called M.E.R.GE. - for Multi-Ethnic Rejects Group Experience - but the playwright does not delineate what race each character should be. Francisco/Paco should obvs. be Latino of some sort, but that leaves wide open casting of the others.
BJ-J has another play ('Purpose') scheduled for a Bway run in 2025, but one hopes this makes the transfer also.
This is a quiet, contemplative novel about an unnamed woman who, following her divorce, the death of her mother, and quitting her job with an endangerThis is a quiet, contemplative novel about an unnamed woman who, following her divorce, the death of her mother, and quitting her job with an endangered species organization - and also at the beginning of the Covid shutdown - decides to join a community of sequestered nuns in a remote area of her native Australia. Not exactly what one would expect to contain riveting, fast-paced thrills - and it doesn't.
But nevertheless, I was quite taken with Wood's narrator and story - and if I could have done with a few less descriptions of the encroaching mouse plague (a real occurrence every few years in those parts), and perhaps a bit more differentiation in the subsidiary nun characters, I was no less taken with what there is here. Wood's prose is also serviceable, without being overly ornate or fussy.
And the final sections about forgiveness and - having lost my own mother recently - the details of her mother's final days, really hit home with me. There's been a bit of a push back about its inclusion on the Booker longlist - primarily, I suspect, because people assume it took the place of the wrongfully neglected Praiseworthy - but it certainly deserves its spot more than a few others on the list (cough, cough ... Headshot ... cough ... Orbital ... cough). In fact, I thought it was much better at delineating its profundities than the rather trite and obvious 'wonders' of the later book....more
The human mind can go anywhere. This is a good thing in art. In life, this is not always a good thing.
I've gone on record as stating that Levy is on The human mind can go anywhere. This is a good thing in art. In life, this is not always a good thing.
I've gone on record as stating that Levy is one of my favorite contemporary novelists, and I am also a big fan of her three volume non-fiction series of 'Living Autobiography'. I've read virtually everything she's published, even such rarities/oddities as Diary of a Steak and An Amorous Discourse in the Suburbs of Hell - with the notable exception of her early plays - which I just found incomprehensible (odd, since theatre is my field).
This new volume is something new for her, however: a compendium of 36 largely recycled essays written over the last 25 years. Most of these were undertaken as introductions to the works of other authors, or pieces on various artists for art publications and vary in length from a few pages to at the most 20. And while they are all very erudite, often witty and full of startling insights - I found myself only intermittently enthralled, usually only if I was already familiar with the works being discussed - although some rudimentary Googling or dives onto Wiki pages often sufficed to bring me up to speed. So a mite disappointed this wasn't a new novel or part four of the autobiography - but reading Levy is always a pleasure.
Many thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ARC in exchange for this honest review....more
1.5 rounded down to 1. # 4 of the Booker longlist for me to read.
What do you get when you combine the repetitive structure of Milkman and Reservoir 131.5 rounded down to 1. # 4 of the Booker longlist for me to read.
What do you get when you combine the repetitive structure of Milkman and Reservoir 13, the 'factoid reportage' stylings of Girl, Woman, Other, with the female sports milieu of Western Lane [... all books I thoroughly disliked, BTW]? You get the latest debut novel that has no legitimate reason whatsoever for being on the Booker longlist - indeed, I am amazed it actually got published.
TBH, I was never going to be enthralled or even mildly interested in a book centered on a minor teenage girls' boxing tournament set in seedy Reno, NV. But the writing here is really of such an inferior quality, and the characters for the most part so uninteresting, that I wound up speedily 'hate reading' it just to get it over with and put me out of my misery, so that I could move on to the next Booker 'contender' - I wasn't going to let this defeat my 11 year streak of reading the entire longlist! :-)
So why a 1.5 instead of a 1 or no stars? Well, in spite of the atrocious writing and dull subject, I was able to plow through 75% of it in 2.5 hours, since there was absolutely NOTHING here that I had to think about or mull over - unlike say, Milkman, which took me ten torturous days to trudge through - so for that I am grateful. Am hoping this will remain #13 in my Booker rankings - I dread if there is actually something even worse lurking and waiting for me! {Which means, given my track record, that it actually stands good odds of WINNING the Booker, so take heart those who are rooting for it!]...more
An interesting docudrama, about a subject I was unaware of - that in 1955, actor Sidney Poitier, just on the cusp of his breakthrough, had a meeting wAn interesting docudrama, about a subject I was unaware of - that in 1955, actor Sidney Poitier, just on the cusp of his breakthrough, had a meeting with Hollywood bigwigs, in which they tried to intimidate him into denouncing Paul Robeson as a Communist, in return for giving him the lead in a TV movie. Poitier (spoiler alert!) eventually refused, but got to star in the film anyway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VEw7...
This started off a bit wobbly but got better by leaps & bounds fairly quickly, although there were also some longueurs along the way4.5, rounded down.
This started off a bit wobbly but got better by leaps & bounds fairly quickly, although there were also some longueurs along the way too. It's apparently based on a beloved UK radio serial and is (obvs.) a parody pastiche of all things Dickens, with references to several of the better-known filmic adaptations.
It aspires to, and often achieves, M. Python-esque heights of absurdity, with some very clever wordplay and a plethora of silly sight gags (which undoubtedly play better than they read!). It is so British, though, I doubt it will ever play here in the US, so sadly, I'll never be able to see it in person! :-(
This got scathingly bad reviews upon its London premiere last Jan. (see below) - in fact, I believe it closed rather quickly, despite starring the estThis got scathingly bad reviews upon its London premiere last Jan. (see below) - in fact, I believe it closed rather quickly, despite starring the estimable Catherine Tate and David Threlfall. Based on supposed 'real events' that occurred in the titular suburb in the '70's, it joins such recent entries into the suddenly fashionable haunted house play genre as 2:22: A Ghost Story and the not yet published Grey House.
And for all its notorious bad reputation - I didn't think it half bad! Part of the problem may be that the script, which contains the usual disclaimer about going to print prior to opening, so that it may differ slightly from the play as performed, is 88 pages long and the reviews state its running time was 75 minutes - so it appears it was severely truncated in the transition! I doubt it will attract many other productions, not least because it requires quite extensive special effects and the hiring of an illusionist.
Having read (and very much liked) 5 of Gasda's most recent plays, I wanted to see what his earlier ones were like. This is the earli4.5, rounded down.
Having read (and very much liked) 5 of Gasda's most recent plays, I wanted to see what his earlier ones were like. This is the earliest one of his that has been published, originally staged in 2015, but remounted last Oct., and then again earlier this year in Mar. (I'm not sure if the play was revised any, but it doesn't appear to have been).
It concerns two 20-something roommates: Maisie, a neurotic, insecure musician, and Emily, a more knowing and sexually forthcoming painter. Maisie has been in a relationship for awhile with David, a slightly older man, who is also secretly boinking Emily. The play starts on the morning after Maisie has had a one-night stand with Max, a young aspiring writer - and as the play develops, these four discuss their varying attitudes towards love and life, while trying to figure out what each really wants.
At first, I thought the conversations were maybe a bit TOO on the nose, but then this is Gen Y, so perhaps they actually do talk in such terms; I'm a boomer, what do I know? If there are a few clunky sentences and speeches, most of what transpires is really interesting, provocative and intuitive.
Intriguingly, though it isn't specified in the script and nothing in the character requires such, it seems from production stills and materials that David is usually played by a black actor - which lends a racial aspect to the proceedings that I am not sure is intentional. The end scene is really quite brilliant, in that Maisie leaves a long message on an answering machine - and not till the last second do we know if the recipient is Max or David.
I'd really love to see a production of this; maybe some intrepid west coast company will take it on.
3.5, rounded down. [Caution - spoiler-ish material ahead!]
This is the 7th and last of Gasda's published plays for me to read, although it is an early 3.5, rounded down. [Caution - spoiler-ish material ahead!]
This is the 7th and last of Gasda's published plays for me to read, although it is an early effort from 2016 - and unfortunately, the one I liked least. It takes place in winter at a beachside cottage near NYC. The first act is comprised of a single LONG conversation between Harper, a 22-year-old college student, one of Gasda's prototypical neurotic, needy, whiny child-women who endlessly obsess over their romantic failures, and her former HS English teacher, Mason, with whom she's been having an affair for 6 years.
Mason speaks almost entirely in often nonsensical philosophical musings that bear little resemblance to 'normal' speech, much of it (intentionally?) pretentious and cringe-worthy:
I live in the burrow I've dug for my own suffocating sense of captivity and loneliness. I'm animal, you know, caught in a world of people... The miracle of language is its metaphorical capacity to reverse what we live into what we feel. To take an ocean outside and transform it into an ocean within.
... and the entire thing is rather circular and repetitious.
The second act fares a mite better, as Harper's mother Elaine, father Paul, and twin gay brother Ryan arrive. Much of this act revolves around a shouting match between the parents, that strives for a Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? viciousness, as each excoriates the other for past and ongoing marital affairs. This act ends with the reappearance of Mason, with the third and final act dealing with the fall-out from everyone learning of his involvement with Harper, and ends with her cryptic disappearance, leaving behind what could possibly be a suicide note.
I don't mean to be overly harsh, as there is much here that is playable and gives the actors meaty stuff to work with - including several speeches that could be used for audition material. But also - as with most every play by this author - the copyediting is atrocious, with words missing, or added extraneously, or in the wrong place, and apparently Gasda does not know the difference between your and you're, as he uses them incorrectly almost every single time! Not only that, but for some inexplicable reason Act 1 and 3 (except the final 5 pages) are numbered, but the rest is NOT! Had it not been for these foibles, I probably would have rounded up to 4 stars, rather than down to 3.
And finally, I haven't a friggin' clue about the title - the play does not take place there and there is no allusion to it anywhere in the play. Perhaps it is meant to invoke that other famous play set there (that would be Hamlet: Prince of Denmark, obvs.), since both revolve around sexual/marital impropriety, family squabbles, and indecision? (PS: That seems to be borne out by a current fundraising appeal to present a new production of the play: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/de.... Harper is apparently an 'Ophelia' manqué figure!)...more
There are four plays in this collection; I will be reviewing/rating them individually as soon as I finish each.
Dimes Square: 4.5 rounded up. IRIS: I'vThere are four plays in this collection; I will be reviewing/rating them individually as soon as I finish each.
Dimes Square: 4.5 rounded up. IRIS: I've met her six times now and every single time she says 'nice to meet you' ... and I'm like ... 'bitch, I've met you ... many, many times ...'
NATE: We are living through the dumbest time in human history.
IRIS: How many times do I have to share my drugs with you before you recognize me as human?
NATE: Apparently more than several.
IRIS: I wish to be euthanized. ______________________________________________
KLAY: I genuinely and without exaggeration want to die right now.
CHRIS: Does anyone want to drop acid this weekend?
IRIS: Last time I dropped acid I had this extremely long conversation with my vagina.
ROSIE: Same actually.
CHRIS: Cool. You can come talk to your pussies.
This is the play for which Gasda is best known, and it catapulted him into the spotlight a year ago with a nice profile in the NYT (see below). It is so similar in tone and themes to his earlier play Ardor (which I also really liked!) though, that he might as well have just combined them into one long epic!* The characters go by different names here, but they are all similar 'types' - most in the 20-30 range, all on the fringes of the various artistic disciplines, although most here are aspiring writers.
The title refers to a specific small artsy section of NYC, and this takes place in the Manhattan apartment of Stefan, whose first novel has just made a splash and sold to Netflix for adaptation. Various friends, frenemies, relatives and acquaintances crash to do various drugs and bitch about their lives and each other, often with some very clever epigrammatic retorts and putdowns (see supra). My only real (minor) quibble is that it just sort of ends without any real conclusion.
*Apparently Gasda HAS written a sequel, called 'Afters' - which has yet to be published.
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The second play in this volume is Minotaur, also (obvs.) available as a stand-alone. I'm giving it a 3.5, rounded up to 4. I complained about Dimes Sq. that it didn't really have an ending - this one HAS one - I just didn't like it!! (There's just no pleasing me, is there?!). It involves the (spoiler alert) appearance of a ghostly figure - which in an otherwise naturalistic play I found to be a cop-out.
The good news is that in lieu of Gasda's usual sprawling canvas of too many characters to keep track of (9 and 11 in his other two plays I've read), this is more of a chamber piece about a family composed of two daughters, their father, stepmother and stepbrother - with whom both are having an affair. Whoops! (... a word Gasda is fond of using himself!). It's also much shorter than his uze - with a running time of around 75 minutes. All that is to the good - but I didn't find these characters to be terribly compelling - and hadn't a clue what the title meant, till the explication in the synopsis of the single edition.
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The third play is Quartet, which I'm giving a 4.5, rounded down to 4. As the title suggests, it features four characters: Jay and Elizabeth, who are about to get married the next day at the beginning of the play, and Jay's best man, Nick, and his longtime GF Ellie. The first scene ends with a bit of partner swapping, the repercussions of which play out over the following four scenes. All four characters are very well-defined, and the dialogue is both naturalistic and often witty; it's just that none of them are (intentionally) very likeable. And the 'startling' revelation in the last moments is both inevitable and can be foreseen from a mile away.
******************************************** The final play in this volume is Berlin Story, another five character study of ennui, this time set in the German city, rather than his usual NYC. I'd give this one 4 stars; it's typical Gasda, in that various artistic types - comprised of an older porn filmmaker and young retired starlet, a war reporter and his German girlfriend, and a British art gallery attendant - constantly verbalize their unhappiness and needs, while at the same time betraying an almost total lack of self-awareness. And like the others, it's both sad and at times humorous - it's the one I'd be least interested in seeing performed, however.
ALANA: Honestly, I think I'm super depressed and just in denial about it. Whoops.
ARTHUR: I find it helps to lock the door and talk to myself out loud ALANA: Honestly, I think I'm super depressed and just in denial about it. Whoops.
ARTHUR: I find it helps to lock the door and talk to myself out loud until I get upset and start crying-
ALANA: That's not really my style.
ARTHUR: OK.
4.5, rounded up.
Although he's been around for about a decade now, prolific playwright/novelist/poet/director Gasda has become something of a media darling in the past 2-3 years with his plays staged in nontraditional settings such as parks, lofts, etc. - with even a splashy profile in the NYT (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/31/st...). I absolutely love site-specific theatre, and initially wanted to do my doctoral dissertation on such, so I was a push-over for this, which was presented in found spaces with the audience seated around the periphery of the acting areas.
Critics have called Gasda a modern-day Chekhov, and though the introduction to his latest collection claims that's a facile comparison, it's also apt (there is even an obvious sly nod to The Cherry Orchard here). Basically, the play revolves around a group of trendy artist types descending upon a rural farmhouse (never stated, but probably in upstate NY, since these species tend to be from Manhattan) for a summer retreat.
The place is owned by 55-year-old dying painter, Andre, but everyone else is in their 20's-30's, friends of his musician niece Chloe and actor nephew Leo. Although a LOT of the dialogue is so much solipsistic navel-gazing, that in the wrong hands could be tedious (and does come off as jejune in places), here it is for the most part clever, original and often witty. (See supra).
But sometimes it gets overly flowery, poetic and non-naturalistic: CHLOE: It's so emotional. The music of the apple-trees ... and the dead parts of me that toss in the wind like laundry on the line - ... The storm last night was beautiful ...like a foreign lady in furs and pearls. Yeesh! I feel sorry for the actor having to deliver that with a str8 face!
There is a large cast of nine characters, and initially I had to keep referring back to the list at the beginning to determine who was who, which probably wouldn't be such an issue in watching it performed.
This edition seems to be a reprint of the original script published in 2016 by Serpent Club Press and it's almost shockingly poorly copy-edited, with copious misspellings (my fave being 'feinting [sic] couch'), poor grammar and punctuation, words being omitted or transposed, dialogue obvs. attributed to the wrong character, etc. - which makes for a somewhat enervating reading experience. Still, Gasda is an exciting find, and I am eagerly going to devour the rest of his oeuvre.
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