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CALISTA FLOCKHART Returned to the New York Stage in Neil Labute's FLOP (3) One Act Plays titled "latterday plays".
OLD REVIEW of "latterday" from late 1999, by Bryan Adrian, from the time when the Labute play premiered in New York City Off Broadway
by Bryan Adrian
"This reviewer thinks "yesteryears plays" would be more appropriate billing for Labute's Off Broadway debut, and also truer to the spirit of the playwright's original intent of sticking to his "limited chauvinist lexicon".
Act One titled "Medea Redux" started off the evening with Calista Flockhart (without makeup) in a very long monologue using the voice of a 13-year old who had been knocked up by her Mormon teacher, and then casually and callously abandoned.
The directing here was quite good given the puerile quality of the prose thereby conveniently amplifying for this reviewer the multiple defects of Labute's playwriting --- I am quite grateful to the director for bringing on my convulsive fits of laughter throughout the frequent script anomalies -- but more on this --
"latterday".
The second play (one-act) was "Iphigenia in Orem," a tour-de-force by the quite charismatic and charming Ron Eldard, who if he lost a little weight might make it to the Olympic heights of film and stage deification very soon.
This Neil Labute one act play of a Mormon businessman rambling on in a monologue about suffocating his baby daughter nonchalantly with his matrimonial bed comforter, in a monologue following on the echoes of Calista Flockhart's long and boring monologue, was as entertaining to me as being forced to listen to the nails being driven into Christ on Mount Calvary during his Crucifixion. That is, this night at BASH was a "cruci-fiction" with ceaseless goose-stepping to the cadences of meta-fiction.
At least Christ's nails creaked out redemptive searing sounds of punctuation and finality and closure which Labute's diffuse and unfocused wordsmithing failed to offer to even one Gen-X stoner, his intended audience apparently. Both Beavis and Butthead are sharpshooting oratorical regimental "Riflemen" in comparison to the cookie cut-out caricatures that are from Labute's 'Nurse Betty Crocker' recipe book.
With only Ron Eldard onstage throughout "Iphigenia in Orem," staring into the center first row as if he were suddenly born an adult with tunnel vision and then thrust by the hand of god into a scene where he addresses a sleeping hooker [offstage] ... I could never determine who was really the intended recipient of his conscience-cleansing process, the hooker, me, or a cockroach I spotted as i entered near the ticket window.
I truly and sorely missed an Elektra female onstage. Her presence would have greatly benefited this play. In addition, if the locale had been set in a balmier and more exact historical setting such as the peninsular thumb jutting down from the Ukraine into the Black Sea, i.e. ancient Tauris, where Iphegenia had originally come from and which is today approximately Yalta in the Crimea --- the play might have much better succeeded, at least in scenery.
But we in the audience were stuck in Act Two with a rather pedestrian type of Marriott Hotel Bar in Orem, a suburb of Provo, Utah, and the home of Brigham Young University (BYU), from which Labute graduated.
The final act 3, the "bash" headline, came across like a homophobic final solution and was performed to a gaping meteor crater hole of painfully evident emptied-out seats. This 3rd short play had been billed as "A Gaggle of Saints" in the program, but it seemed to me nothing more than the same old tired manuscript of "Bash," that Labute wrote in his geeky teens for a freshman college assignment.
It is a tedious and tepid see-sawing of monologues between Mormon husband-and-wife, John and Sue, portrayed faithfully to the text on stage by Paul Rudd and Calista Flockhart.
Rudd was competent but hardly winsome nor inspiring as the homophobic and homicidal husband-to-be. Calista, having had time now to finally apply her makeup due to a 50-minute plus hiatus from the stage since her appearance in Act 1, looked like the prettiest girl of a high school prom wearing the very largest white corsage up for sale in her state. Her submissive compliancy and uncertainty of timber and tone were perfect for the expected "agree-with-everything" Mormon wife of a murderer.
If god had ever created a woman with absolutely no soul then this "Sue" creation of Labute captures her essence perfectly and Miss Flockhart should receive a Tony for her skillful emptiness.
Your dutiful reviewer here was disappointed that the thunderous and eternal primal S-C-R-E-A-M of Calista Flockhart that closed Act One and that rocked the house and which had everyone chattering like monkeys during the intermission (because her reverberating vocal horror had seemed to linger and ricochet from the small stage to the foyer and then into the Eons) -- was not also used to boost up Act Three.
I would have been thrilled to see Calista's Sue character explode the head right off of her blood-lusting husband-to-be with her Act 1 predatory scream, only using it this time as a weapon. Watching John's head burst into a mist would have been pretty satisfying good ole American entertainment after listening to him gloat and rant sophomorically (for over 20 minutes) about having bashed into pulp the face of a homosexual in a Central Park latrine with a heavy metal NYC public wastebasket.
I looked around the theatre at sagging heads and snoring somnabulants and also at several recently vacated seats (and at $45 per ticket this is exquisitely telling) --- then drifted away from the director's intent into a world of my own. I noticed the shadows on the spare wall set up by the evening's clever stage designer displaying a towering monument of a male form overshadowing a little sliver of a woman, yet without the wherewithal to eclipse her presence, a female and streamlined praying-mantis one quarter his total mass -- despite their equal head sizes.
The recitations (incantations) of the players onstage seemed quite unimportant, so I listened exclusively to the inarticulate hatred of Calista´s homophobic fiancée issuing forth like bile from his rotting liver, counter pointed by the softly spoken words of his condoning and morally blind wife-to-be.
Suddenly, it was deep personal contentment to let the subliminal content of their sheer meaningless words brush by my ears like blood splaterred bat wings in flight -- while I found my own metaphysical buoyancy in watching the two-dimensional revelatory wall shadow pantomimes of cro-magnon Rudd in a pas de deux with demon-fairy Flockhart.
Labute has been lionized as "non-conformist," "combative," and a "warrior," who "chips away at society's weak spots like a jail breaker," ... etc.
I may have misquoted the critic and he really said artificially flavored "jawbreaker," and I sincerely apologize for the impropriety.
I found Labute more of a Ptolemy XXXIIII from the House of TV Reruns who salted his scripts with "Wheel of Fortune" clichés or prosaic adaptations of throw away lines from obnoxious Oscar-winning blockbusters (from the genre of Steven Spielberg or Rocky style opuses) and then using these derivative retreads more lavishly than a provincial advertising copywriter might do floundering away in the mud puddles of Fort Wayne, Indiana.
For an example of truly non-conformist and orthodoxy-challenging writing and dialogue, instead of this Labute counterfeit, I highly recommend the film script linked below, which is a shameless promotion of my own writing!
This reviewer secretly wishes that Calista Flockhart would find a friend or colleague or partner [Harrison Ford] who can help her discriminate between meaningless scripts, vacuous series, and insubstantial characters, be they comedic or tragic. At least her career long agent/handler clearly saw the value of money -- ever since Miss Flockhart left off Off Broadway -- and this same handler apparently had considerable pull with "Us" magazine and Charlie Rose and David E. Kelley (the apparent demigod of the many Miss Jones in Hollywood today), given the broad publicity patronage that built up this play from thin air.
A minor confession is in order at this point. This reviewer had been sloshed with Miss Flockhart a dozen times years ago in NYC's Miss Ellie's Bar & Grill before she performed in 1996 as Natasha in a production of Chekov's The Three Sisters, her first "taste" of mainstream success and all the devilish pacts that followed.
When this reviewer did drink on one long gone night his last shared martini with both Miss Flockhart and her at the time doting fiancée (from her own home town in New Jersey) he told me that Calista would
"NEVER do TV like he had made the mistake of doing himself"
in New Jersey soaps and for which she needled him mercilessly like an elongated needle nosed Egyptian mosquito.
Calista earned laudatory reviews in "THE NEW YORK TIMES" for her portrayals in both Chekov and Tennessee Williams plays, rave reviews that dwarfed even some of the many Marlon Brando reviews of the 1950s [this achievement, added to the fact that Ron Eldard also had been favourably compared to Marlon Brando in a Wall Street Journal review dated May 22, 1995 for his work in "On the Waterfront," still didn't make this "bash" C-L-I-C-K].
Is the vanishing youth of Calista, like Iphigenia, scheduled to be sacrificed on the altar of popular Hollywood culture? Where is her Elektra to the rescue? At this time, Iphigenia, I mean Calista, seems to have arisen from the temple and to have been revived as the specious "Ally McBeal". Miss Flockhart says in character over and over throughout her "bash" monologue, "You know, there's a Greek word for this but I can't remember it."
Well, the audience certainly did. BAD. Maybe she will effectively remember the **word too -- and undergo a Midsummer Night's resurrection.
###
** "AKADIA" is the word.
###
** "AKADIA" is the word.
--- Notes on some recent History of Miss Flockhart's Off-Broadway beginnings:
Edward Albee's "THREE TALL WOMEN" premiered June 14, 1991 in Vienna. It's American premiere was on July 30, 1992 at Woodstock. The same cast opened the New York City production on Jan. 27, 1994 at the Vineyard Theatre and totalled 47 performances. It thereafter moved uptown on April 5, 1995 to the Promenade Theatre, at 2162 Broadway, reaching 582 performances there by its closing on Aug. 26, 1995.
The Promenade Theatre had earlier afforded Calista Flockhart a good role in "Wrong Turn at Lungfish". THREE TALL WOMEN later needed a stand-in, temporarily for several weeks, to play the youngest woman, "C," of Albee's three important archetypes A,B, & C, in its Upper West Side production. This role officially belonged to Jordan Baker, and I'm not speaking of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jordan Baker, the snobby and stuck up character of THE GREAT GATSBY.
Will Miss Flockhart ever return to the New York stage and shed like a snake the tightening skin of Miss Ally McBeal?
review by Bryan Adrian who can be reached at bryan_adrian@yahoo.com
FOOTNOTE & Postscript: The producers of this website who are responsible for its content are happy to announce that Ally McBeal has been cancelled and Miss Flockhart-Ford is free to pursue new avenues.
Calista gets her man!
Hooray for Harrison Ford !!!! Way to go !!!
Harrison Ford blasts US Iraq policy
August 27, 2003
Madrid, Spain
Away from the censorship of the U.S. media and the Pentagon, veteran Hollywood actor Harrison Ford launched a broadside at US policy on Iraq, his country's gun laws - and the film industry for producing violent "video games" for teenagers.
"I'm very disturbed about the direction American foreign policy is going," said Ford, with US post-war casualties having exceeded those during the actual conflict."
"I think something needs to be done to help alleviate the conditions which have created a disenfranchised and angry faction in the Middle East."
"I don't think military intervention is the correct solution. I regret what we as a country have done so far," said Ford, 61.
"I'm very troubled by the proliferation of arms, at the fact so many people in the United States carry guns. It obviously contributes greatly to the crime problems we have. I'm sure gun laws should be strengthened in the United States. I just don't know the correct mechanism."
The veteran star is in Madrid to promote his latest release Hollywood Homicide, a story of two moonlighting Los Angeles policemen, and to receive a commemorative pin from Spanish soccer club Atletico Madrid, city rivals of Real, the club having tied up a sponsorship agreement with Columbia films.
NEWS BULLETIN -- MADRID !!
28 AUGUST 2003
Ally McBeal's Calista Flockhart accompanied her movie star beau Harrison Ford on a whirlwind trip to Spain on Wednesday as he introduced Madrid to his latest action flick.
The couple were in the capital city for just 24 hours as Harrison promoted his latest film, Hollywood Homicide. However, duty called for the 61-year-old actor, and as he attended a packed press conference – and accepted a football kit emblazoned with his name from one of the city's two soccer squads, Atletico de Madrid – his famous girlfriend took a look at the local attractions. The petite TV star, dressed casually in white, was spotted enjoying a walk in Madrid's scenic Retiro Park near the hotel in which the two stayed.
But once Harrison's presentation was over, the A-list pair reunited for a romantic meal at one of the city's exclusive seafood restaurants. And then, it was a quick trip to the airport, headed for their next destination.
Calista and Harrison's visit shed no new light on the status of their 19-month-long relationship. When asked if they've already set a date for their wedding, the Hollywood veteran stated simply: "I don't talk about my private life."
Latest Calista Flockhart and the NY Stage, Update: from the June 12th, 2003, NEW YORK POST:
(Cindy Adams) ... "Last year Calista and I had a quiet little conversation in our town, backstage at the Tony rehearsals. Calista was sitting very quietly, alone, and she said -- 'my secret agenda is to be back in New York. I've done plays here! BASH two years ago and "Three Sisters" 5 years ago. I loved Broadway, but partly because I loved belonging to New York City. I hope to do another play soon and one reason is because I want to live again in NYC. In LA I have a house and yard and its good for my baby. I have parents in Tennessee but I don't want to live there.
I have friends in LA but its so transient there. I don't want to live in California. I'd love to relocate to NYC because it has everything."
Residents in San Felipe, Baja California were shocked to find leading man Harrison Ford drowning his woes in tequila and dancing in their local bar. Patrons said the newly divorced celebrity revealed that his relationship with his girlfriend was "on the rocks." Calista Flockhart has also been spotted jogging near the couple's Hollywood home and looking "miserable." Are we to still expect wedding bells! Jan. 10, 2004 update
SOUL-LESS IN SION
by Bryan Adrian
Matrix Reloaded 2003
The Smiths or the Smurfs? For me, I would have been satisfied with an upper limit on Smith replicants set at least to 666, and not 789,467,198,467 ... True. They filled in a lot of the frequent dead stretches in the movie that made no sense in MATRIX VIRAL LOAD REVISITED [aka "Matrix Reloaded"] with hundreds of Smiths as smurfy Pee Wee Hermann look alikes which barely kept the movie from completely sinking every quarter of an hour.
This film should have been smashed against Ayers Rock and never allowed to leave Australia.
The movie did however, by the end of long hours of tortuously boring car and truck and motorcycle chases and crashes, sink like the Titanic, and the sperm load of the plot was, I am sad to report, disappointingly impotent and leaden. The overall sperm count clearly needed "reloading", as was suggested in the title [now I get it].
The love scene between Neo and Trinity [I thought Carrie-Anne Moss should have played his mother and not his lover] was even less sexy than the comical and vapid dance posturing in the sandstone caves of Sion, fumbling and pelvis bumping motions bringing all of us in the cinema to the point of pain and discomfort, caught in the directors stranglehold in their attempts to make an erotic replicant of a love-in during the 1968 Flower Power scene in Haight Ashbury.
Nobody was on acid and everybody was on viagra as they gyrated on this Laugh In set. The dance moves must have been choreographed by Bill Gates himself. The jump cuts to the humping of Kenau against the inflatable plastic version of Carrie-Anne Moss would have made better hormonal heat if one of those giant electro-mechanical spiders could have given her a much better arachnid drilling rather than the tense and hesitant humanoid Neo doing push ups on Trinity's cadaver.
Okay, we do have Kenau Reeves dressed up as a Jesuit missionary and it is kinda cute for nearly three hours of dark and unfocused and shadowy screen time, reminding me of Joel Schumakers dreary and bleeding focus style. Couldn't we have had some Dominican Friars and some Augustinian monks too?
The slowest part of the film was when Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) was fending off a straight razor pressed against his throat by a twin albino Austrian vampire Merovingian [perhaps based on Larry and Andy Wachowski] from the court of Pepin the Short and Charlemagne, fighting for his life with his eyelashes in a static car chase scene. In a speeding car in which the prize fighter and killer Merovingian albino cannot somehow make himself move his blade even 1/32nd of an inch on dozens of missed [or pissed] opportunities against the vulnerable juglar vein and neck of Morpheus the Carolingian, with his head in a neck hold, as he defends himself mightily by "batting his eyelashes" in repetitive defense strategies using his eyelashes and not his wits nor strength as a fearsome and fearless warrior in trouble.
His eyelash ninja technique proved to be quite effective by the time the scene dangled by the neck so long that I lost interest in who survives and who does'nt. Next film could have Jerry Seinfeld as Neo and it would be all the same for me.
The ending with Kenau Reeves stretched out on a morgue table followed by the on screen giant caption "TO BE CONCLUDED" [no, not "to be continued"] warns one what the scriptwriters have for talent is already a foregone conclusion.
Dead meat and army ant feces.
The attempts at German inflected English conversation about existentialism and freedom of choice are bon mots for Roseanne or Michael Jackson or Buffy, but not for anyone over 12.
Wait until all three DVDs are going for $4.99 for the complete set in 2005 at Blockbusters as the chain is going out of business, and you will never regret the decision.
This dove is one of the very few to get away from its forest of OUTSOURCING and temp agency slavery -- and it protected itself from being OUTSOURCED via flight and swiftness. Look how beautifully it flies away from both Hillary and GW -- both knuckle fisted outsourcers!!!
Matrix Reloaded 2003
