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| re: Anyone else in my camp re OFFICE HOURS and MARY JANE | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 11:00 am EDT 10/24/17 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 11:00 am EDT 10/24/17 | |
| In reply to: Anyone else in my camp re OFFICE HOURS and MARY JANE - NewtonUK 10:45 am EDT 10/24/17 | |
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| Contention is useless in pitting subjective opinions against each other. But I'll just add: I didn't see that narrow a premise in Mary Jane. If anything, it's a extended portrait of letting go, the eleventh hour. Rather than simply denial, Mary Jane is gripped with holding onto the ritual that the 24/7 care of Alexander has given her. As awful as it is, it defines her life. It's who she has become, the loving overseer of this child here so briefly. It's no accident that everyone in the 2nd half calls her "Mom." She's exclusively defined by it. The play is dramatizing what that costs her, but also what it has given her. A reason for being. It's just so much richer than simple denial. She has wisely been on top of the child's condition since birth, has had her share of wins, providing evidence that the medical establishment she depends upon was wrong. It's painful to watch, but also exhilarating to behold, this woman who has a Zen approach to the seemingly impossible. She's not selfless, she is revealed through her caretaking. I found it enthralling, and the ending infused with humanity. | |
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| re: Anyone else in my camp re OFFICE HOURS and MARY JANE | |
| Posted by: NewtonUK 11:43 am EDT 10/24/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Anyone else in my camp re OFFICE HOURS and MARY JANE - Delvino 11:00 am EDT 10/24/17 | |
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| Thanks so much for that. And I did love the performances. I get it ...! | |
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| re: Anyone else in my camp re OFFICE HOURS and MARY JANE | |
| Posted by: lordofspeech 11:09 am EDT 10/24/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Anyone else in my camp re OFFICE HOURS and MARY JANE - Delvino 11:00 am EDT 10/24/17 | |
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| This play MARY JANE sounds so interesting. I may try to catch it before it closes Sunday. But I must say I'm wary, and in that I guess I've become like a conservative theatre-goer. I would like to know that I'll be uplifted or relieved or have some sort of positive shift at the play's end and not be left in grief or despair about disabilities. Can anyone help me out with this? (And it's not a question I'd have asked when I was 17. I loved the movie "Other People" in which Molly Shannon played the mother dying of cancer, so I'm not a wuss about human suffering. But I don't know that I'd want to sit through "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg" again, for instance.) | |
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| re: Anyone else in my camp re OFFICE HOURS and MARY JANE | |
| Posted by: summertheater 03:32 pm EDT 10/24/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Anyone else in my camp re OFFICE HOURS and MARY JANE - lordofspeech 11:09 am EDT 10/24/17 | |
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| Mild spoiler - Mary Jane picks up towards the middle when the hospital emergency happens, but before that it's mostly boring small-talk, all of which could be cut to save 40+ minutes from the rather lengthy running time. It's as if the writer just kept writing and writing to fill up 100 minutes. An 80 minute version would have been much stronger. | |
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| re: Anyone else in my camp re OFFICE HOURS and MARY JANE | |
| Posted by: Ann 03:40 pm EDT 10/24/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Anyone else in my camp re OFFICE HOURS and MARY JANE - summertheater 03:32 pm EDT 10/24/17 | |
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| It's depicting a situation realistically. You can't always convey something in a quick 80 minutes. The audience should feel something of what she's feeling, and her life is not very exciting and is without relief. I'm not saying you have to be bored to understand, but I think the audience gets a sense, and feels it, of what such a life is like. I found nothing about it boring, and making it shorter (just to make it shorter) would be cheating the characters. | |
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| re: Anyone else in my camp re OFFICE HOURS and MARY JANE | |
| Posted by: Delvino 07:46 am EDT 10/25/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Anyone else in my camp re OFFICE HOURS and MARY JANE - Ann 03:40 pm EDT 10/24/17 | |
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| Agree entirely. | |
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