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Review by: The MAsked Critic, Jun 7, 2010 |
Sometimes you witness a play that is just so blatantly manipulative and uneven that you honestly wonder why someone would choose to produce it. You wind up with a a play that's the theatrical equivalent of a Lifetime movie, one which has one dimensional characters that shift moods and personalities at will to make a scene more melodramatic. And that's what That Face is at best. At worst it's a play that squandered the acting talents ... read more of its cast, and strained the credulity of its audience beyond the breaking point.
The play starts interestingly enough; 14 year old Mia and her girlfriend are hazing one of their private school dorm mates, and it turns out Mia has overdosed her on valium. Why? Was she trying to be conmpassionate and spare her the worst of the punishment? Was she trying to prepare her for further indignities without a fight? Forget it. the hazing is just a ploy to get her estranged father back to London from Hong Kong, and we expect all hell to break loose when he comes, except it doesn't.
Switch scenes to Mia's emotionally damaged brother and drunk, drugged out, mentally ill mother in bed together in an emotionally insestuous relationship (relax, to get their "G" rating it is later dropped that he is a virgin at the play's outset). Mother manipulates him, and he dotes on her, trying to make sure his dreaded father doesn't realize she needs serious help and has her insitutionalized (which woul be the best possible thing for all concerned).
Thorw in a few meaningless scenes and daddy, the poster boy for the univolved father, comes in and makes a donation to get Mi back in school (what else should he do? Univolved fathers always substitute money for affection) and--gasp--threaten to go see mom. Of course mom waivers from being manipulative of sonny boy (and hating daddy and daughter) to being protective of sonny boy as the needs of the scenes change. It ends with the self centered woman becoming Joan of Arc and making a sacrifice for sonny boy.
The acting is good for the most part (but in the last scene I thought mom and sonny boy were so over the top they made William Shatner look like Lord Olivier), , but in the end it was a play about nothing. I realize the author was only 19 when she wrote it, but that doesn't give her a pass; if it was produced at a college workshop where it could be ctitiqued and reworked, it might have been interesting to see it and the changes--but it doesn't belong on Broadway. Don't waste your money or, even more importantly, your time.
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My recommendation:
Don't go
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