SITE GUIDE
SEARCH
REVIEWS
REVIEW ARCHIVES
ADVERTISING AT CURTAINUP
FEATURES
NEWS
Etcetera and
Short Term Listings
LISTINGS
Broadway
Off-Broadway
NYC Restaurants
BOOKS and CDs
OTHER PLACES
Berkshires
London
California
New Jersey
DC
Connecticut
Philadelphia
Elsewhere
QUOTES
TKTS
PLAYWRIGHTS' ALBUMS
LETTERS TO EDITOR
FILM
LINKS
MISCELLANEOUS
Free Updates
Masthead
A CurtainUp Review
Slipping,
|
There are houses. Houses with trucks and mini-vans and basketball hoops in the driveway. Boys with tight jeans and boxers.— Eli
—Eli
|
Seth Numrich and Macleod Andrews.
(Photo by Paula Court)
|
Slipping is a coming-of-age story about Eli (Seth Numrich), a gay high school senior. Following his father's suicide, Eli has moved from San Francisco to Des Moines with his mother, Jan (Meg Gibson).
Back in San Francisco, Eli's boyfriend, Chris (Adam Driver), was a sadistic, vindictive young man who brutalized Eli and left him so scarred he is almost incapable of forming another relationship. But in Iowa he meets the sweet, all-American Jake (MacLeod Andrews), who teaches him how to love again. The scenes careen back and forth between Iowa and California, allowing for a heavy-handed comparison of the sweet and sour boyfriends.
But Eli has much more to contend with. His mother, it turns out, was not only unfaithful to his father but she never loved the poor schlemiel to begin with. And she apparently made little effort to hide her affairs from this patient and loving husband. No wonder he killed himself.
Eli, on the other hand, always loved his father, who enjoyed telling dirty jokes and kept little lists reminding him to look up obscure facts, often to he could please his wife or son. Eli could never understand why his father refused to assert himself. (So, of course, he has become a younger, gayer version of his father.) He wishes it were his mother and not his father who had died.
It's too bad Eli's father never appears onstage. He is the most interesting character in the play. It would have been great to find out how he felt about his son and wife. And it certainly would have been informative to discover how he would have reacted to having a gay son (one suspects with love and understanding).
If Slipping is truly a personal story, then it is remarkably like a host of other tales of gay angst — the boyfriend who is reluctant to tell the world about his sexual orientation, the sadistic lover who insists he is not gay, the disengaged mother. It sometimes seems as if these characters escaped from another play and quietly slipped into this one – honestly, no pun intended.
Director Kirsten Kelly's attempt to tell this story with a single set is every bit as misinformed and confusing as the script. Nor has she resisted the self-defeating lure of nudity onstage (not once, but several times).
Perhaps, given the circumstances, it's not fair to expect the actors to deliver sterling performances. Could they have made original or at least somewhat interesting characters out of the material Talbott gave them?
Talbott writes, "Slipping is a love story about two boys in a suburb in Iowa in 2006 at the shore of legalized marriage and Obama. Maybe that means it's about hope and change." Real hope and change might mean seeing plays that depict gay people as something more than a collection of anxieties, neuroses and sadomasochistic impulses.
|
Slipping By Daniel Talbott Directed by Kirsten Kelly Cast: Seth Numrich (Eli), Meg Gibson (Jan), Macleod Andrew (Jake), Adam Driver (Chris) Scenic Design: Lauren Helpern Costume Design: Chloe Chapin Lighting Design: Joel Moritz Sound & Projection Design: Brandon Epperson Props Design: Eugenia Furneaux-Arnends Fight Director: Christian Kelly-Sordelet Running Time: 85 minutes, no intermission Piece by Piece Productions and Rising Phoenix Repertory in association with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 224 Waverly Place. 212 868-4444 www.risingphoenixrep.org From 7/28/09; opening 8/04/09; closing. 8/15/09 Monday through Friday at 8pm, and Saturday at 5pm and 9pm, with a special added performance on Sunday, August 2 at 7pm Tickets: $20 Reviewed by Paulanne Simmons Aug. 10, 2009 |
|
Subscribe to our FREE email updates with a note from editor Elyse Sommer about additions to the website -- with main page hot links to the latest features posted at our numerous locations. To subscribe,
E-mail: esommer@curtainup.comesommer@curtainup.com
put SUBSCRIBE CURTAINUP EMAIL UPDATE in the subject line and your full name and email address in the body of the message -- if you can spare a minute, tell us how you came to CurtainUp and from what part of the country. |
|
REVIEW FEEDBACK Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
Paste the highlighted text into the subject line (CTRL+ V): Feel free to add detailed comments in the body of the email. . .also the names and emails of any friends to whom you'd like us to forward a copy of this review. |
Try onlineseats.com for great seats to
Wicked
Jersey Boys
The Little Mermaid
Lion King
Shrek The Musical
South Pacific
In the Heights
Playbill 2007-08 Yearbook
Leonard Maltin's 2008 Movie Guide
Wicked
Jersey Boys
The Little Mermaid
Lion King
Shrek The Musical
South Pacific
In the Heights
Playbill 2007-08 Yearbook
Leonard Maltin's 2008 Movie Guide