Utility, Orange Tree

[pledge]

Hmm...This might be a meticulously drawn recreation of a thwarted life, painstakingly and patiently created from a thousand minutely-observed humdrum details, leading eventually to a "climax" of restrained and understated pathos...

or...

it might be the equivalent of 90 minutes spent watching paint dry.

I genuinely can't decide.

[NeilVHughes]

Similar predicament.

Rarely disappointed at the Orange Tree, in this instance cannot see much more to this play than what is written in the blurb and the reviews.

[showgirl]

Well at least it's relatively short: I'm seeing this in the evening after the far longer Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, so at worst I have 90 minutes to endure and if it's really taxing, as I have an aisle seat by the exit/entrance, I should be able to melt away even earlier if necessary.

[Steve]

Just saw the matinee.

Some spoilers follow. . .

Where Annie Baker's plays are all about the sparks that fly while paint dries, this is about how paint drying makes sparks all but impossible.

It's poetic, and therapeutic too, but it takes patience.

Since most of life is, in fact, paint drying, and then repainting the cracks, watching this could give you some Buddhist-style psychological distance and wisdom about the universality of quotidian suffering.

Or it could alternately annoy you, or bore you, depending on your mood.

I really liked it. It's the anti-Annie Baker play, in that it suggests Annie Baker is too much of a romantic, and that life probably doesn't consist of John Hughes style escapades of connection, by and large.

Frankly, I'm with Annie Baker on this, but a good dose of pessimism/realism is quite refreshing.

The performers are all wonderful, and I have particular affinity for Robert Lonsdale's super-minimal depiction of husband Chris, a man forever amiably ambling on the end of a super slow motion leash.

Go only if you are up for a contemplative, poetic moment.

I do like the Orange Tree.

4 stars.

[foxa]

I'm with Steve on this - I liked it.

And this is why:

I liked its sympathetic and realistic portrayal of working class characters. People who live from paycheck to paycheck and have to grab extra shifts when they can. A mother who has to buy some cheap stuff that even she doesn't see the point of just so her child has something to unwrap on her birthday. And how they bear up through all the indignities and minor disasters, improvising and making do. Anyone who has ever, on a limited budget, tried to juggle work, childcare, housework will recognise this.

I liked the yearning of the characters. The brother has a beautiful speech. Chris has a sweet hopeless optimism about him.

I liked the sense of trying to connect with the young you while being forced to be the adult - and how that sometimes falls particularly heavily on women.

I liked the actors.  I looked up some of their credits -  a couple, I feel, have been under-appreciated by the industry - they are v. v. good.  Also the direction was sensitive.  Side note: I wonder why I so often enjoy the acting more at places like the Orange Tree and Theatre 503 than I do  in bigger places like  the National or the Bridge

I liked that there was a sign outside warning that there is: 'smoking, live flame and peanut butter.'

[NeilVHughes]

Adored this, not what I was expecting at all, a play that gets under your skin.

Reminiscent of The Flick, an insignificant story subservient to the lives of the characters.

Four people making the most of the hand they are given, the human spirit in all its tedious magnificence.

[showgirl]

I also enjoyed this (evening performance today), having been a little worried by some reports and fearing that it might be like watching paint dry. But no: I was genuinely engrossed throughout and found the characters well-rounded, credible and sympathetic.