The Conical Glass: That'll do, pig.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

That'll do, pig.

I work hard all week and the least I can expect on the weekend is some good, solid entertainment, right? Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't...

Last night I went to see the new Shotgun Players production, "The Shaker Chair." I don't think their 2007 season was one of their best; the only play I embraced fully was "Bulrusher." I had high hopes for "The Shaker Chair" because I thought Encore Theater's 2005 production of playwright Adam Bock's "The Typographer's Dream" was superb, but "Shaker" isn't as fully realized. The characters' speech patterns made me wonder if Bock is a bit too influenced by David Mamet, although I suspect the tendentious storyline, about a 60-ish woman who becomes converted to the cause of ecological activism, will ensure a long, healthy run in Berkeley. I will say that Francis Lee McCain, the lead actress, was absolutely marvelous. I was amazed at the extent of her IMDB listing -- she's appeared in dozens of movies & TV shows.

One of the much-buzzed-about aspects of "The Shaker Chair" is the fact that a live pig appears onstage during the show. The pig (courtesy of a local pig sanctuary) even has its own understudy. However, the pig's role is minimal; it's only onstage for a minute or so. At the very least the pig could have come out at the end for the curtain call. If you're making a big deal about the pig (it is pictured in several of the publicity photos on Shotgun's web site), shouldn't it be more significant? It winds up feeling contrived and gimmicky.

At least "The Shaker Chair" is a brisk 75 minutes. "Atonement" is two hours that sometimes feels more like twenty. I know a lot of critics have been talking this one up as Oscar bait, but I found it unbearably slow-moving and remained curiously unmoved by the tale of two ill-fated lovers. The middle World War II section felt muddled; a long tracking shot on the beach at Dunkirk seemed like a pointlessly show-offy move. But this was the sort of movie where I kept noticing things like tracking shots and the scary sharpness of Keira Knightley's shoulder blades (Keira: eat something!) and the wallpaper in the gorgeous estate where the first portion of "Atonement" was filmed. I wish I could have been swept away by the drama, but alas, it was not to be.

posted by 125records @ 8:09 PM

4 Comments:

At 7:30 AM, Janet ID said…

This post has been removed by the author.
At 1:34 PM, Steve said…

I thought the title was a "South Park" reference. I also thought Janet didn't like her kids's first names exposed on interblogs.
At 6:09 PM, Janet ID said…

Yeah, I forgot & just realized a few hours later. Oops. No harm done, though - I just stopped by the courthouse after work and changed her name. Still, Sue could delete this whole round of comments to preserve the privacy of the innocent, and her blog would be none the poorer.
At 6:20 PM, 125records said…

What if I repost Janet's comment and change the name of the young'un? Here's what she wrote: Freaky... we just watched Babe this weekend while doing Paris's hair, so I was a bit astonished by the title of this post.