Michelle treated me to the opening night performance of Speed-The-Plow last Thursday. I was excited to go for many reasons—it was a great chance to catch up with Michelle, I was hot off my Man for All Seasons viewing and excited to take in two shows in a week, and it stars my one-time stage BFF (admittedly, a one sided friendship as he didn't remember who I was from one of our many meetings to the next), Raul Esparza.
Unfortunately, the show just never really came together for me. The script was dated, and I had forgotten just how homophobic and misogynistic Mamet can be. Jeremy Piven basically played his Entourage character, Ari Gold, only this time his name was Bobby Gould. Elisabeth Moss, from Mad Men, was also reminiscent of her TV character. Esparza did well playing the sycophant, but it wasn't enough to save the show for me. I admit to even dozing off a tiny bit during the second act.
It was fun to attend an opening, and we even got a glimpse of Liev Schrieber and a very pregnant Naomi Watts when we left. That was kind of the highlight, though.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Speed-The-Plow
at 10:26 PM
Labels: On the Boards
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2 comments:
My friend Rich was in a production of Speed the Plow a few years ago, and I really enjoyed it. It makes me wonder how much of how this play is received depends on the directing and such -- it may be that in the production I saw, the misogyny and such was played down and the humor played up or something.
Thanks for the review! I've been on-and-off curious about this...the cast is so enticing, but I'm not a Mamet fan. And since Naomi Watts's baby bump probably won't be a regular feature of the production, I'll probably sit this one out. :)
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