Wednesday, December 15, 2021

What Gets Made

My family and I see a lot of theater.  Most of what we see is pretty solid.  Some of it is truly outstanding.  And every once in a while, we see a show that leaves us scratching our heads wondering who thought it was a good idea to produce that show.

We recently watched the play “Morning Sun”.  It had a great cast – Blair Brown (Orange Is The New Black), Edie Falco (The Sopranos, Nurse Jackie) and Marin Ireland (Sneaky Pete).  All are great actresses.

When I re-read the reviews for Morning Sun after the fact, I can now see that all of the quoted reviews are about these actresses and their performances.  None of them talk about the play itself.

That should’ve been a sign.

In a nutshell, the play is about one woman’s life (Edie Falco) and it is told to her by her mother (Brown) and daughter (Ireland).  It was an unusual way to tell the story because shouldn’t she know the story of her own life?  Why did she need them to tell it to her?

The other thing is – her life wasn’t all that interesting.  Hate to say it but I’ve got relatives whose lives and stories would make a far more interesting play than this one.

Did we hate it?  No.  The performances were very good.  We just left the theater wondering what it was about this play that someone felt it was important to spend tons of money producing for Broadway.  If anyone out there has seen this play and can clue me in, I’m all ears.

Frosty




1 comment:

  1. I am a theater critic and have seen plays like this -- you wonder why. Thje worst was probably a play written by Larry Linville (Frank Burns in M*A*S*H) He hada died the year before and a little community theater in Winters, CA was doing the play. His friend Gary Burghoff (Radar O'Reilly) came to opening night. It was a very big deal.

    It was a very bad play. I was so disappointed! Very difficult to write a review.

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