First off, theatre was pretty empty. About 65% in orchestra, only part of first row and a few other scattered people in the loge. Surprising.
ACT ONE is one of my favorite theatre books, and one of the great ones of all time.
Moss Hart's career started in the 20's, working with a second class tour promoter, and taking off when he found himself collaborating with George S Kaufman on ONCE IN A LIFETIME (1930) for legendary producer Sam Harris (remember him with Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy?).
The 1920's & 1930's were a buzzy, frantic time on Broadway (and the road) - 203 productions opened on Broadway in the 1930-1931 season, when ONCE IN A LIFETIME also opened. George M Cohan revived his hit THE SONG AND DANCE MAN. Jack Benny made his Broadway debut in Earl CArroll's Vanities with Arlen/Harburg songs; Jed Harris did indeed produce UNCLE VANYA starring Lillian Gish (though not the Bway premiere as Mr Lapine would have it); The Gershwins opened GIRL CRAZY at the Alvin; Eubie Blake composed Lew Leslie's Blackbirds; The Lunts starred in Maxwell Anderson's ELIZABETH THE QUEEN; the play GRAND HOTEL was a smash; Cole porters THE NEW YORKERS opened; George Kelly's PHILIP GOES FORTH; ANATOL and GREEN GROW THE LILACS both premiered; Noel Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, and Laurence Olivier opened PRIVATE LIVES; Katharine Cornell starred in THE BARRETS OF WIMPOLE STREET; and Dietz Schwartz & Kaufman had a hit with THE BANDWAGON.
You get the idea.
And yet in ACT ONE we get no sense of this whirlwind world.
So - while I enjoyed much of James Lapine's ACT ONE at LCT - I do wonder why Mr Lapine still is engaged to direct. ANNIE and LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE were both poorly directed and staged. The latter poorly written by Mr L.
Here, Mr Lapine doing double duty again as author and director, comes up a cropper again, IMHO.
There is virtually none of the buzzy sexy world of Broadway in the '20s and 30's about this production. (beyond one name dropping tea party scene at the Kaufman's house - and its Harpo, Edna Ferber, and Dorothy Parker whose names are dropped)
The production's greatest sin (clocking in at 2.45) is a funereal pace. Part of this is a few actors delivering there lines at an excruciatingly slow pace. I mean, SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW.
Then there are the seemingly 500 15-25 second scene changes, done to lugubrious piano music.
the set is a humongous tri level turntable (Beowulf Borritt), like a giant lazy susan, with sets along the outer edge.
This should allow seemless scene to scene activity. But mr Lapine never uses the set this way. Almost every time it begins to turn we hear dull piano music and wait and wait and wait for the next scene. Even though even the most amateur wannabe director amongst us can see opportunity in every scene change for scenes to meld instantly into the next scene.
This might only cut 5-6 minutes off the running time - but might give a bit of the breathless world of 20;s/30's Broadway to this piece.
It also has the lazy playwright trick of two narrators, who one begins to dread, trying to connect the dots for us, rather than telling the story through actual scenes.
Moss Hart's story is a great one, and ACT ONE is worth seeing because its worth enjoying the story onstage - even in a production as slow and slow and slow as this one is.
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