There was a debate today on WNYC News on the length of Broadway plays; one argued that the audience invest both money and time and long plays cost more while the other responded that investing more time is rewarded by a fuller experience. I wrote a comment.
The classical three-act format allowed the play to unfold by developing the characters in Act I, formulating a conflict in Act II, and achieving a resolution in Act III. An hour long performance is a skit, like a TV sitcom episode, not a theatrical play. The producers who present a play no longer than an hour and with no intermission, deploying only three, two, or even one character as they are doing more often of late are swindlers at $100 a ticket. Skits can be good, even a monologue can be good as an act of story telling or story reading. Short stories, however good, are not novels. Audience members who get itchy to get up after an hour and are unwilling to invest more time should stay home and watch television.
Of course, small is not necessarily bad as big is not always good, and vice versa. But Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, the Goodman Theatre’s production at BAM Harvey, went from 7:00 to 12:00 midnight with three intermissions, and in this instance the work certainly deserved the length it required. Hickey's extended speeches, delivered movingly by Nathan Lane in this performance, which contributed to the stretch, were worth every minute. As the NY subway after 11:00, the schedule is irregular and truncated, I had to work out a complex itinerary with three changes and arrived home at 2:00 -- a long journey, truly A Long Night's Journey into Day.
By contrast, David Ive's Lives of the Saints, a Primary Stages production, was notable for short plays; six skits made up the program, each complete in itself and, so, without any integrating theme binding them, except for the recurrence of the same actors in repertory. Ives is a master of punning and other word plays, and every single skit was enchanting and entertaining. But the evening was essentially a dinner composed of appetizers and desserts without entrée.
Of course, small is not necessarily bad as big is not always good, and vice versa. But Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, the Goodman Theatre’s production at BAM Harvey, went from 7:00 to 12:00 midnight with three intermissions, and in this instance the work certainly deserved the length it required. Hickey's extended speeches, delivered movingly by Nathan Lane in this performance, which contributed to the stretch, were worth every minute. As the NY subway after 11:00, the schedule is irregular and truncated, I had to work out a complex itinerary with three changes and arrived home at 2:00 -- a long journey, truly A Long Night's Journey into Day.
By contrast, David Ive's Lives of the Saints, a Primary Stages production, was notable for short plays; six skits made up the program, each complete in itself and, so, without any integrating theme binding them, except for the recurrence of the same actors in repertory. Ives is a master of punning and other word plays, and every single skit was enchanting and entertaining. But the evening was essentially a dinner composed of appetizers and desserts without entrée.
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