Filmed version of the 2023 revival of the Stephen Sondhiem play is going to be a love it or loath it affair. the story of three friends over the years told backwards is not everyone's cup of tea.
While the play has has rewrites, rethinks and assorted other iterations that added and removed songs the show has always been something I liked the idea of but never really the execution (a "proper" movie version filmed over the actual span of the play, so the actors age properly, is now being shot). Looking at the filmmed version of the show I was never fully engaged. The film is a record of the play and never transcends into anything beyond that. What works on stage doesn't completely work on the screen. Granted I am not a fan of the show so my tolerence for the piece was low
While I like Sondhiem and his shows I have always been kind of curious as to why he has become the theater god since many of his shows are intellectual and atypical and, the odd song aside, tend not to connect with the public in general. That's not a knock on Sondhiem or the shows, only my inability to understand why theater people fall all over him.
As it stands now, this version of MERRILY is a nice record of the show, but I suspect it would have played best when it started it's run in the tiny New York Theater Workshop where it could have been an intimate experience and not one controlled bythe cinema gods.
No comments:
Post a Comment