There's something incredibly exciting (for me) about going to a show at Playwrights Horizons. I don't know what it is--maybe it's because two of my favorite theater-going experiences ever were there, Mr. Burns and The Christians, and every time I enter those doors on 42nd street, I think, "will this be another play just like those great ones?"
Sadly, they rarely tend to be these days (although, for all their faults, I enjoyed Mankind and Log Cabin.) And for as ambitious as Craig Lucas' new play, I Was Most Alive With You is, I can't help but say, "c'mon, Craig, less is more."
Lucas sets out to write a play loosely based on the Book of Job, highlighting one man's suffering. This man, Ash, who is Jewish, is a successful TV writer (apparently the writer of the longest-running show of all time? No, he's not Matt Groening) who is a recovering addict and let's not forget, did time for domestic abuse. (His Gentile wife, Pleasant, for some reason, has not divorced him yet.) He has an adopted son, Knox, who is not only deaf but also gay and a recovering addict. Are you following me? Ash's mother, Carla, who has financed his television show, announces she not only has lost all of her money to a Ponzi scheme, thus causing the cancellation of said show (that's not how television works! Was this on public access?) but has had a relapse of cancer that is now terminal. Are you overwhelmed? Oh, well, I forgot to mention that Knox has a Muslim deaf sex worker boyfriend (I guess? They live together but they don't sleep in the same bed but Knox loves him) named Farhad who is also an addict and has some unexplored love of video games.
Whew. I am exhausted. And I haven't even mentioned Carla's aide Mariama, who is a Jehovah's Witness, who also has a son on death row. Why? I don't know, I guess Lucas really want to show that everyone suffers. They suffer so so much. They suffer in every possible way that a person can suffer.
(There's another character, Astrid, who is Ash's writing partner who may have feelings for him but is also Knox's best friend. Whatever. She's one of the most obnoxious characters I've seen on stage in a long, long time.)
So let's recap what we're dealing with: religion, addiction and recovery, disability, and sexuality. Oh, wait, I forgot illness. And quite frankly, most of these things are so underdeveloped that they are just what these character merely are or have. Knox could be anybody--a paraplegic, blind, bisexual, heterosexual, Catholic, black, white, Asian, and really the story remains the same. Lucas piles these adjectives onto his protagonist simply because he can.
And when Knox is in a major accident, during which he loses his hand (and won't able to sign, get it?) it immediately threatens not only his sobriety but Ash's. And the play turns into a melodrama that borders, at times, on camp. Intentionally, the bad things keep piling up and piling up onto these characters and I understand what Lucas' intended effect was but it had the opposite one on me. I couldn't help but think, "enough is enough." Mostly because everything feels so cliched. The one thing that seems authentic about this play is Knox being deaf. But even so...who cares? The play wouldn't really be any different if he could hear. By the time the final scene occurs, during which I suppose the audience is supposed to be profoundly moved, I thought, "oh please." The relationship between Knox and Farhad is so poorly developed that I wasn't sure Knox was so obsessed with winning him back, or why Farhad would even show up at that particular moment. Craig Lucas, decide what your play is about, don't throw everything to wall to see what sticks.
What sticks the most is the theme of addiction, and it would've been admirable if Lucas had written a play about addiction and how it affects not just the addict but his family and friends. But Lucas can't even figure out who his protagonist is. Ash is the stand-in for Job but this is truly Knox's story. Oh, and did I mention there's also an incredibly obnoxious framing device, in which Ash and Astrid are using all that has happened in the first act for a new writing project? I mean, what kind of father would use his own son's intense and personal struggles for a new TV show?
Which brings me to the so-called "shadow cast." Look, it's admirable, sure. It allows I Was Most Alive With You to be accessible to a group of people who aren't always present at the theater. I cannot argue with the importance of that. However, director Tyne Rafaeli hasn't really figured out of a way to make this device work as well as it can. Having the shadow cast above the action is just distracting, and eventually I stopped watching them altogether. And well, are they really necessary from a pragmatic standpoint? Most of the characters sign anyway, and there are supertitles as well. It's well-intention but I'm not sure if it really succeeds.
Sadly, they rarely tend to be these days (although, for all their faults, I enjoyed Mankind and Log Cabin.) And for as ambitious as Craig Lucas' new play, I Was Most Alive With You is, I can't help but say, "c'mon, Craig, less is more."
Lucas sets out to write a play loosely based on the Book of Job, highlighting one man's suffering. This man, Ash, who is Jewish, is a successful TV writer (apparently the writer of the longest-running show of all time? No, he's not Matt Groening) who is a recovering addict and let's not forget, did time for domestic abuse. (His Gentile wife, Pleasant, for some reason, has not divorced him yet.) He has an adopted son, Knox, who is not only deaf but also gay and a recovering addict. Are you following me? Ash's mother, Carla, who has financed his television show, announces she not only has lost all of her money to a Ponzi scheme, thus causing the cancellation of said show (that's not how television works! Was this on public access?) but has had a relapse of cancer that is now terminal. Are you overwhelmed? Oh, well, I forgot to mention that Knox has a Muslim deaf sex worker boyfriend (I guess? They live together but they don't sleep in the same bed but Knox loves him) named Farhad who is also an addict and has some unexplored love of video games.
Whew. I am exhausted. And I haven't even mentioned Carla's aide Mariama, who is a Jehovah's Witness, who also has a son on death row. Why? I don't know, I guess Lucas really want to show that everyone suffers. They suffer so so much. They suffer in every possible way that a person can suffer.
(There's another character, Astrid, who is Ash's writing partner who may have feelings for him but is also Knox's best friend. Whatever. She's one of the most obnoxious characters I've seen on stage in a long, long time.)
So let's recap what we're dealing with: religion, addiction and recovery, disability, and sexuality. Oh, wait, I forgot illness. And quite frankly, most of these things are so underdeveloped that they are just what these character merely are or have. Knox could be anybody--a paraplegic, blind, bisexual, heterosexual, Catholic, black, white, Asian, and really the story remains the same. Lucas piles these adjectives onto his protagonist simply because he can.
And when Knox is in a major accident, during which he loses his hand (and won't able to sign, get it?) it immediately threatens not only his sobriety but Ash's. And the play turns into a melodrama that borders, at times, on camp. Intentionally, the bad things keep piling up and piling up onto these characters and I understand what Lucas' intended effect was but it had the opposite one on me. I couldn't help but think, "enough is enough." Mostly because everything feels so cliched. The one thing that seems authentic about this play is Knox being deaf. But even so...who cares? The play wouldn't really be any different if he could hear. By the time the final scene occurs, during which I suppose the audience is supposed to be profoundly moved, I thought, "oh please." The relationship between Knox and Farhad is so poorly developed that I wasn't sure Knox was so obsessed with winning him back, or why Farhad would even show up at that particular moment. Craig Lucas, decide what your play is about, don't throw everything to wall to see what sticks.
What sticks the most is the theme of addiction, and it would've been admirable if Lucas had written a play about addiction and how it affects not just the addict but his family and friends. But Lucas can't even figure out who his protagonist is. Ash is the stand-in for Job but this is truly Knox's story. Oh, and did I mention there's also an incredibly obnoxious framing device, in which Ash and Astrid are using all that has happened in the first act for a new writing project? I mean, what kind of father would use his own son's intense and personal struggles for a new TV show?
Which brings me to the so-called "shadow cast." Look, it's admirable, sure. It allows I Was Most Alive With You to be accessible to a group of people who aren't always present at the theater. I cannot argue with the importance of that. However, director Tyne Rafaeli hasn't really figured out of a way to make this device work as well as it can. Having the shadow cast above the action is just distracting, and eventually I stopped watching them altogether. And well, are they really necessary from a pragmatic standpoint? Most of the characters sign anyway, and there are supertitles as well. It's well-intention but I'm not sure if it really succeeds.
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