(Please click on the title to see the complete review).
MCC Theater is to be congratulated for bringing the work of a promising young playwright to New York. In this intriguing but ultimately frustrating drama now in previews at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, 26-year-old playwright Paul Downs Colaizzo offers a blistering view of the Me Generation. The plot revolves around what actually happened at a drunken college party at the house of Cooper (David Hull), a slacker who is on the rugby team. Leigh (Zosia Mamet from "Girls"), a student whose boyfriend Jimmy (Evan Jonigkeit) is away for the weekend, claims she was raped at the party by Davis (Matt Lauria), a campus heartthrob who shares the house. He has no memory of what transpired. We question her claim because she has already lied about being pregnant to hang on to her wealthy boyfriend, she has a slutty reputation, and she sees her accusation as a way out of poverty. Also, Davis has a sterling reputation as a good guy. As the situation develops, we learn the responses of Davis's career-minded teammate Johnson (Kobi Libii), Leigh's cynical sister Haley (Aleque Reid) and her earnest roommate Grace (Lauren Culpepper). The relentlessly self-serving message of the speeches Grace gives as president of the Future Leaders of America is a counterpoint to the plot. By play's end, almost everyone has revealed a dark side that changes our perceptions. It's never boring, but a little too schematic. There is one puzzling plot development in the second act that makes no sense at all. The play is ill-served by David Korins' set design that involves frequent shoving of furniture back and forth and doesn't really capture the differences between the two student homes. Sarah Laux's costumes are suitable to each character. David Cromer's direction was not up to the high standard he set with "Our Town" and "Tribes." Running time: 2 hours including intermission.
Showing posts with label Kobi Libii. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kobi Libii. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Friday, February 3, 2012
CQ/CX **
(Please click on the title to see the full review.)
First, the title: it's a newsroom symbol for "fact verified" and "fact corrected." Not exactly a grabber.
Alas, neither is this new play, by former Times news assistant Gabe McKinley, now in an Atlantic Theater Company production at the Peter Norton Space. The Atlantic is billing it as a "docudrama," which is a very tricky genre. What is the value of reanimating a decade-old scandal, unless it is to provide new insight, clarify the context and motivation or make it more coherent dramatically? Alas, CQ/CX does not really succeed at any of these things. It presents real-life identifiable New York Times figures under slightly altered names, along with characters who may or may not be fictionalized. The imagined conversations and monologues of Times honchos as played by David Pittu, Arliss Howard, Peter Jay Fernandez and Tim Hopper deliberately include several remarks that, colored by the wisdom of hindsight, now sound either foolish or ironic and allow the audience to feel superior. The relations among the three interns in the Times diversity program - a black man, an Hispanic woman and a Jew, respectively played by Kobi Libii, Sheila Tapia and Steve Rosen -- are ploddingly depicted. The old editor played by Larry Bryggman adds a note of pathos, but has little to do with the main action. The biggest flaw is the version of Jayson Blair written by McKinley and played by Libii. Either the role is poorly written or his acting is not up to snuff or both. We leave the theater with no deeper understanding of why he did what he did, which makes the whole proceeding rather pointless. David Levaux directed. The production values are all first-rate, but for me that only emphasized that the play isn't. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes including an intermission.
First, the title: it's a newsroom symbol for "fact verified" and "fact corrected." Not exactly a grabber.
Alas, neither is this new play, by former Times news assistant Gabe McKinley, now in an Atlantic Theater Company production at the Peter Norton Space. The Atlantic is billing it as a "docudrama," which is a very tricky genre. What is the value of reanimating a decade-old scandal, unless it is to provide new insight, clarify the context and motivation or make it more coherent dramatically? Alas, CQ/CX does not really succeed at any of these things. It presents real-life identifiable New York Times figures under slightly altered names, along with characters who may or may not be fictionalized. The imagined conversations and monologues of Times honchos as played by David Pittu, Arliss Howard, Peter Jay Fernandez and Tim Hopper deliberately include several remarks that, colored by the wisdom of hindsight, now sound either foolish or ironic and allow the audience to feel superior. The relations among the three interns in the Times diversity program - a black man, an Hispanic woman and a Jew, respectively played by Kobi Libii, Sheila Tapia and Steve Rosen -- are ploddingly depicted. The old editor played by Larry Bryggman adds a note of pathos, but has little to do with the main action. The biggest flaw is the version of Jayson Blair written by McKinley and played by Libii. Either the role is poorly written or his acting is not up to snuff or both. We leave the theater with no deeper understanding of why he did what he did, which makes the whole proceeding rather pointless. David Levaux directed. The production values are all first-rate, but for me that only emphasized that the play isn't. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes including an intermission.
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