goestoshow

I actually saw this one a couple of years back, in 2009. You can find my prior review here. Not much was different about this version of the play, except that it was updated to follow US politics (Canadian Alliance becomes Tea Party, Progressive Conservative becomes Republican, and, if I remember correctly, Preston Manning becomes Sarah Palin). This is only really a superficial change, but probably one that needed to happen given the Canadian Alliance hasn’t existed as an independent entity for close to ten years now.

Amanda Bergen did a very good job in the role, switching easily between the different roles and giving them separate voices at the same time. There were a few slipups, but they seemed like opening night issues more than anything and I suspect they’ll clear up soon.

The only other thing I have to say about it is rather peripheral: They used the chair from Moving Along, another Chris Craddock play from 2009 as their lighting board. Which is both weird and genius.

Since I’d already seen it, I don’t have a lot to say on the subject matter. I recommend seeing it if you haven’t already, it’s a very fun play. I may convince the person I went with to post a guest blog post about her thoughts on the play later, so keep an eye out for that.

This play is interesting. It’s a fairly typical story of a boy who likes a girl who doesn’t like him the same way, but told in a somewhat non-linear fashion and with a frame story that ties in to its ending. The biggest problem for the play, though, is that the characters are both extremely unlikeable. The girl is a jerk and the guy is a spineless (in the end that’s more true than you might expect) douche.

That makes it really difficult to sympathize. There’s a whole Nice Guy vibe going through the play that I just found kind of unsettling. And you really have to wonder why someone would stay friends with someone who repeatedly kicked them in the nads, up into adulthood.

I also found the ending, which involves the death of the male character, kind of unnecessary. It didn’t really add to the message of the play and just left it feeling more maudlin than it already was with the unrequited love.

I give it as many stars as I have because I saw potential in it, but it really needed more work on the characterizations especially.