review

[ilanarama]

Last night's show went magnificently. Nobody screwed up any of the lines (at least, not too badly), the timing was spot on, and the audience -- and we actually had one -- laughed in all the right places and applauded generously. The technical effects, my purview as stage manager, worked flawlessly.

Unfortunately, the reviewer came the night before last. When we sucked. Lines were forgotten -- hell, whole sections of the play were somehow bypassed when actors desperately and randomly reached into their memories to dredge up something to say -- the blocking looked clunky, and with exactly 8 people in the 600-plus seat hall, there wasn't much energy out there. Worst of all (from my perspective), a speaker wire silently and mysteriously failed. So much for our sound effects.

But why should I go on about how bad we were? Let the reviewer speak:

The script is hokey...the characters are one-dimensional...theatrically, the production
 is a dismal failure.  The acting is fairly atrocious.  There is no sense of timing, and the lines
get delivered about as far as the downstage floorboards.  The stranger, one Leo Tannenbaum,
is supposed to be "the happiest man (they've) ever seen."  As played by [name omitted
to protect the guilty, but gawd, I have to agree], he seems more like someone having
recently woken from a coma, re-learning how to walk and be functional in society.

And then there's the radio...Was this technical error or expected suspension of
disbelief?  A radio sound is not a complex theatrical effect to accomplish.

And we can't even be pissed off at the reviewer. It's all true.