Sunday, January 2
Signature Theatre
7:30pm performance
How do you memorize a seven-hour play (see also Gatz)? More to the point, how do you memorize three separate roles in a seven-hour play? Eric Bryant must have one hell of a memory. Trish and I saw him in Part 1 subbing for Christian Borle, but he actually also covers Louis and Joe Pitt! Sunday night for Part 2 Borle was back, but I have to give props to Bryant who gave a respectful if cautious performance in Part 1 - understandable considering he must be going schizo with all those different characters jostling around in his brain.
Part 2 seemed to fly by compared to Part 1. Likely an unavoidable circumstance given so much expository junk needs to get thrown at as in order to fuel the machinations of Part 2. Or maybe it’s just the cast’s comfort at having the regular Prior back. Whatever it is, the three hours whizzed by. I don’t have much more to say except Borle’s Prior is much more detailed and nuanced than Bryant. But then again, Borle’s been playing the role for months while Bryant performed the role for the first time. ‘Twould be quite pathetic if Borle hadn’t surpassed Bryant’s performance (and I have no idea why I just started writing in Ye Olde English).
Not to sound pompous, but this play really is a modern classic. In a hundred years, if our progeny want to know what life was like in the early 90’s, just hand ‘em a copy of this play.
My only gripe? - Billy Porter kept stealing glances at the audience during his scenes. It was really quite annoying. Like he was looking for our reactions and making sure we understood how funny he was. Maybe he’s doing it unconsciously, but it came off like he wasn’t completely invested in his scene partner and playing to the audience. Oh well, regardless of that minor quibble, if you’re able to score a ticket, grab it. And you get the added bonus of Bill Heck going the full monty.
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