Marica Gay-Harden, Jeff Daniels and Hope Davis were all in the play as well. It was written by French playwright Yasmena Reza, who has written quite a few other high profile
plays, most notably Art, which won the 1998 Tony Award for Best Play. Anyways, Carnage was billed as "a comedy of manners without the manners"...two couples meet to discuss the ramification when one couple's son (Daniels/Davis) hit's the other couple's (Gandolfini/Gay Harden) and causes him to loose two teeth. Of course, words are thrown, morals and principles are abandoned, and hilarity ensues. It was an excellent show, fairly light and fast paced, but the performances were extraordinary, all of them uniformally excellent with the stand out being Marcia Gay Harden; she was able to devour Gandolfini with just a look - it was intense...she was absolutely brilliant and should win Best Actress in a Play come June 5th. Others thought it was quite good as well, so good, it was rewarded with 6 Tony nominations Tuesday morning including Best Play, nominations for all four actors, and Best Director. Carnage also has a very good shot of winning Best Play, and Gandolfini or Daniels could sneek by in Best Actor, especially Daniels for his completely droll performance.After, I took my playbill and head out to the stage door to see if any of the actors would come out to sign autographs or take pictures. Jeff Daniels came out first, and he was nice, if not a bit stand-offish. Hope Davis came out next and she was absolutely delightful, and took time to sign autographs and chat with the crowd. Marcia Gay Harden emerged with a small entourage (her family) and was so down to earth, she stopped and chatted with people and signed autographs...so gracious and kind, it was amazing, and really great to see. After she came out, the security guard said that James wouldn't be coming out, and he put the barriers back up against the side of the theater. A lot of people were disappointed, and many of them left. I knew better. I, along with a handful of others hung around for about another 10-15 minutes. The stage door opened and James poked his head out and came out into the street. I almost died. Tony Soprano was standing 10 feet away. A much more eager fan asked for an autograph, he kind of mumbled and said sure, and signed our playbills. The same fan then asked for a picture, and again, he kind of mumbled yes, and me, not wanting to be one upped, also asked for a picture....
I almost peed my pants, and in fact, I'm pretty sure I was shaking a little. I kept saying, "thank you, thank you, this is awesome"....he was totally what I expected he would be like; I wouldn't say mean or ungrateful, just kind of...indifferent. He was wearing like, windpants and a windbreaker, and eating fruit snacks or something from a package, as evidenced in the photo. It was a pretty awesome day - and it would get better.
We checked into the hotel, and went up to our room. It was a little dirty, stains on the carpet, cracked tiles in the bathroom, and the drain took forever to drain. So I went down to the front desk and said "We're here for my mom's birthday, I'm a gold preferred guest, there are stains on the floor, cracked tiles, blahblahblah, and I'm just generally unsatisfied with the room" thinking that we'd get moved to a new room. So the girl at the desk goes out back and comes back a few minutes later and says "You're only staying one night, right? Checking out tomorrow?" I said yes, and she said "We can put you on a suite on the 17th floor - enjoy the rest of your stay"...I was excited, but thought, a suite in NYC was probably a standard room that was a little bit bigger...not so much. We get up to the 17th floor, the room is all the way at the end of the hall- I open the door to a marble foyer, complete with live plants and flowers. There was a kitchen, livingroom, bedroom, diningroom table for 6 people, TWO bathrooms...it was HUGE. It took up the entire width of the hotel; one side of the room looked out onto 8th Avenue, the other side to Broadway.
We had dinner at this great steakhouse, Frankie and Johnnies and then had tickets to see 9 to 5: The Musical, based on the movie of the same name.
I didn't really know what it was about and was vaguely familliar with the title song, but other than that, didn't know a whole lot. I did know, however, that it had been dragged through the mud in it's reviews a few days earlier. Most of the critics praised the three female leads (Allison Janney, Stephanie Block and Megan Hilty) but said that the rest of the show (save for the score by Dolly Parton) was pretty awful. Sadly, I agreed. I didn't care for it at all, and I thought the reviews were pretty much spot on. Allison Janney was indeed excellent (that woman is TALL) as were the other two women, but overall it was just plain blah. The choreography was pedestrian, the sets/lighting were ok, but sometimes a little too flashy, and the story just kind of ended, like someone said "ok, we're approaching the 2:30 mark, time to wrap things up!" AND, my biggest quibble, the big 11 o'clock number for Block's character, while well written and extremely well performed, came out of no where and did NOTHING to evolve the plot forward...the audience around me, however, ate the show up and lept to their feet once the curtain came down. I was a lot more hesitant...I know, I'm a theater snob; but I wanted to like it, went in with an open mind, and it just kind of failed...After spending the night in the suite, got up Sunday morning, went for a run, checked out this cool exhibit at the MoMA (hooray getting in for free!) and then saw the matinee of Next to Normal, I know, I have already seen it, but we got a great deal on tickets and it was such an amazing show. I liked it even more the second time around, and it's gotten a lot stronger (which I didn't think was possible) since I saw it at the end of March. It was also awarded 11 tony nominations tuesday morning, Musical, Actor, Actress, Featured Actress, Director, Original Score, Book, Orchestrations, Lighting Design and Scenic Desgin. It will go head to head with Billy Elliot, which is nominated for 15 awards (tieing The Producers for the most nominations), in most of its categories. Here's hoping Next to Normal will triumph in some of them - I'd hate to see a Billy Elliot sweep, as good as that show was.
Sox tonight with Mike Arnold, UMass tomorrow for the Zeta class initation! 12 miles also on tap for this weekend, my last long run before the 1/2...wish me luck!
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