It is one of the most frequently asked questions of critics: “Do you ever change your mind?”
Of course we do. We are supposed to deliver opinions on time and with the efficiency of a soft-drink machine dispensing the right coins. But occasionally, there are second thoughts.
A critic might revisit a play and see qualities or defects he missed the first time. Or he might be visited by second thoughts from quiet and sober reconsideration.
Before 1980, Broadway critics for the daily newspapers had to make up their minds in the cab ride from theater to typewriter, and then bash out their reviews in minutes. Under pressure, we learned to condense our thinking and reach conclusions more quickly than we do now.
Today, we are given more time to ponder – which doesn’t mean we don’t still change our minds. Everyone is human. Was it Emerson who said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”?
Still, I found it disquieting that, after reflecting on two plays last week, my opinions of both of them changed rather significantly.
The qualities of Rebecca Gilman’s “Boy Gets Girl” at the Manhattan Theater Club are evident. The drama is a smartly contrived cliffhanger that starts off with a blind date and a couple of beers outside a generic Manhattan bar.
The couple seems an ill-assorted pair. He’s younger than she is, gauche and puppyishly eager. But he regards “The Age of Innocence” as a Winona Ryder movie. It’s not panning out.
Reluctantly, she agrees to see him for dinner, but that date is even more disastrous.
We sit back to enjoy this screwball comedy, wondering just how this boy is going get that girl. Then, like a slow thunderbolt, it dawns on us that this play is no comedy but a TV-style thriller (think “Law & Order” or “The Practice”).
It turns out he’s a stalker. Wow!
The dialogue is as natural as conversation, and the story could be yanked from yesterday’s newspaper. It is also beautifully staged and acted.
Yet, as with Gilman’s earlier play about race relations, “Spinning Into Butter,” this story of non-sex and threatened violence seemed, after a day or two of reflection, too obvious, with characters too stock and a conclusion that really told us nothing.
Why did I change my mind? I realized I admired the play because of that slow-burn thunderbolt. The device is slick and it grabbed me, just like on one of those channel-magnet TV thrillers.
But when you weigh it, such a shiny, surface virtue also masks the play’s limitations. My final answer on “Boy”: It’s a talented play, amply worth seeing, but neither as good nor as talented as it might at first seem.
I had something of a reverse reaction to John Patrick Shanley’s ambitious costume drama, “Cellini,” at the Second Stage Theater.
This story of the adventures of the great Renaissance man, based on his vainglorious autobiography, has almost everything going against it, not least the phony Italianate accents thrust upon this occasionally miscast cast.
Worse yet were Shanley’s florid and bombastic writing and cozy attempts at period flavor with a modern twist.
So it’s a bad play, yes?
Not so fast. Thinking about it later, I found its serious and even provocative themes of art, ambition and the price to be paid for both more haunting than I would have expected.
Indeed, it made me reread the Cellini autobiography – which, in sad fact, was a lot better than I had remembered.
Oh, well.
