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NEW - PUNK ROCK - Talkin' Broadway's Review

Posted by: T.B._Admin. 07:00 pm EST 11/17/14

Matthew Murray takes a look at Punk Rock:

Timeliness is not the same thing as sensitivity. The MCC Theater production of Simon Stephens's play Punk Rock, which just opened at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, displays plenty of the former and not so much of the latter. True, the play may have premiered in the U.K. in 2009, but it speaks to concerns that dog American society still, and can't be wiped away with the passage of just a few years. But it's difficult to take Trip Cullman's mounting of it seriously given that it seems to have no clue what ideas it's trying to argue. . . .

Link PUNK ROCK Review

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re: NEW - PUNK ROCK - Talkin' Broadway's Review

Posted by: wmdmcree 09:30 am EST 11/18/14
In reply to: NEW - PUNK ROCK - Talkin' Broadway's Review - T.B._Admin. 07:00 pm EST 11/17/14

I was not impressed with the play, for some similar reasons and other different reasons than those articulated in this review, but I did have one overwhelming question while watching the performance - Why would any of the students being bullied have continued to come back over and over to this room, when they obviously knew and expected the treatment they would get, especially the "nerd?"


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re: NEW - PUNK ROCK - Talkin' Broadway's Review

Posted by: writerkev 01:33 pm EST 11/18/14
In reply to: re: NEW - PUNK ROCK - Talkin' Broadway's Review - wmdmcree 09:30 am EST 11/18/14

At one point the nerd showed a message he'd received on his phone, and I think we were meant to intuit that he was getting death threats, or that the world outside the library was somehow even more threatening, unsafe, and awful than the world inside it.


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Typos? Or just inattention?

Posted by: NeoAdamite 10:45 pm EST 11/17/14
In reply to: NEW - PUNK ROCK - Talkin' Broadway's Review - T.B._Admin. 07:00 pm EST 11/17/14

I'm not going to argue interpretation, but there are some odd statements about the story:

William's protector is Tanya Gleason (Annie Funke), a shy and overweight girl who understands the pain in William's past and is willing to look by it in a way no one else is. Still, having to compete with Nicholas for Lilly's affections is an obstacle even Lilly may be hard-pressed to help William work around.

Tanya doesn't try to protect William, she tries to protect Chadwick. And that second sentence doesn't make any sense at all, unless the second "Lilly" is meant to be "Tanya"--and even then it doesn't match the sense of the script.

Oh, and it's "full bore" not "full boar."


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Did We See The Same Play?

Posted by: aislestorm 08:57 pm EST 11/17/14
In reply to: NEW - PUNK ROCK - Talkin' Broadway's Review - T.B._Admin. 07:00 pm EST 11/17/14

Because everything you describe compares to nothing I saw in the production Sunday afternoon.
And I DID leave feeling as though I'd been punched in the gut. You are so wrong on this one.


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re: Did We See The Same Play?

Posted by: dlevy 10:05 pm EST 11/17/14
In reply to: Did We See The Same Play? - aislestorm 08:57 pm EST 11/17/14

I felt much the way Matthew did. To the extent I was unsettled by the play, it was due to the extremely graphic violence and not at all due to any ideas it was trying to put forward.


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re: Did We See The Same Play?

Posted by: lowwriter 11:47 pm EST 11/17/14
In reply to: re: Did We See The Same Play? - dlevy 10:05 pm EST 11/17/14

Agree with dlevy on this one. And I wasn't impressed by the actors, either. I went over a week ago.


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re: Did We See The Same Play?

Posted by: NeoAdamite 12:02 am EST 11/18/14
In reply to: re: Did We See The Same Play? - lowwriter 11:47 pm EST 11/17/14

And I wasn't impressed by the actors, either. I went over a week ago.

I saw it on Sunday, and I suspect it was much better than a week earlier.

On the other hand, having now read through a handful of the British reviews, I suspect we're not getting the full effect.


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