Well! Back when I made this blog last year, it was specifically to talk about that one weekend. Who knew that, thirteen months later, I'd be going again? I'm generally not one to spend huge amounts of money on frivolous things, especially being that I'm not the one earning money around here. But when Alan Rickman is involved, it's pretty much a no-brainer that I will be there, if at all humanly possible. I look at it this way: what if I
didn't go? What if Alan Rickman came to the U.S. and starred in a play that ran for three months, and I
didn't go? I would have to live the rest of my life with that giant void. The Thing I Didn't Do.
This time the play was "Seminar" by Theresa Rebeck. I really suck at describing plays, movies, and books, but I'll make an attempt. I started to write out the story, but I tend to get the details and timeline screwed up. The main thing with this story is that it's very dependent on the actual dialog and the way it's delivered. Alan's character is Leonard, a washed up novelist turned editor. We learn about his character through the harsh critiques he makes of his four students, who are each paying him $5k for a 10-week writing seminar.
Kate has been working on her novel for six years, because someone with some clout once told her it was "much better than most". Leonard reads the first few lines and tells her it's complete, soul-sucking crap, and that she shouldn't bother with her attempts to help people understand who the narrator is, because nobody gives a shit. He's relentless about this, too, and mentions "this terrible story I recently read" at every turn. This really tears her apart, because she's invested so much time and energy on it, but ultimately she decides that Leonard just doesn't like her writing because she's a rich, white woman. She deals with it by writing something new and different, and saying it's by this guy she knows, who's a cross-dressing Cubano gang member. This works, not only because Leonard gives it a chance, but because it frees her up as a writer.
On the other hand, Leonard really loves Izzy's writing, despite its complete lack of plot or character development. That's because her writing is full of sex, and it turns him on. Here's a
little taste of that.
Izzy's no fool, and wastes no time jumping in the sack with Leonard. When Martin, who has a crush on Izzy, learns about this, he doesn't believe it's true. He says, "That would be unethical. And surely Izzy isn't so naive as to think that sleeping with this editor is going to be good for her writing career." Kate points out that perhaps it's Martin who is being naive.
Douglas is a bit of a geek (and well-played by Jerry O'Connell, who was charming and funny after the show). He wears red pants and uses a lot of flowery nonsense phrases like, "the convergence of the interiority and the exteriority", but there is very little substance to what he says or what he writes. After reading a bit of Douglas's story, Leonard tells him he's not without talent, but in his writing he's like a whore. He tells him he'll never be any kind of serious, well-respected writer that way, but would do just fine in Hollywood, because that's the kind of souped up fluff that goes over so well in Hollywood. "Your writing is good--
in a whorish way."
Martin, being appalled by what he has seen so far, doesn't show Leonard any of his writing during until very late, but it turns out that he had sent a 20 page story to Leonard, through a third party, some time in the past, and also has a few thousand pages that he's never shown anyone at all. Leonard has no memory of having read that story. When someone points out how annoying it is that Leonard seems unable to keep track of anything he reads, or anything about his students (including their names), he points to Izzy and says, "Well excuse me, but that one there has been fucking my
brains out for the past two weeks, so you'll forgive me if I don't remember every little detail...." Izzy looks sheepishly away. She has already told Martin that she
wasn't sleeping with Leonard, and that lie lead to them having a fling of their own. Martin continues to naively believe Izzy, until later on, when she says tells him it's true. When he gets on her case for telling a lie, she says, "Well, it wasn't much of a lie. No one believed it until except for you."
It is through Martin that we learn the most about Leonard. He has some good things to say about Martin's writing, and attempts to offer some advice, but Martin's response is "fuck you". He's totally fed up with how obnoxious and abusive Leonard has been, and wants nothing to do with him. At that point he still thinks he's lying about sleeping with Izzy, and he also has learned that Leonard's writing career basically ended when he plagiarized a student's writing. Leonard has a monologue here, where he describes how he sees Martin's future as a writer. He's using such detail that it soon becomes apparent that he's actually telling us his own story.
For the last scene, the walls of Kate's apartment rise up to reveal Leonard's apartment, which is full of books all the way to the ceiling. Leonard quits the seminar before the 10 weeks are up, and Martin comes banging on his door looking for the balance of his money back. He finds Kate walking across the room in nothing but a shirt, asking Leonard if she remembers where her panties are. (They're in the kitchen.) Leonard goes off to take a shower, and Kate tells Martin that Leonard had liked the story she wrote as the cross-dressing Cubano gang member, and had found an editing position for her. Martin still didn't understand how or why she ended up in his apartment, and asks if they've been having sex. She looks at him incredulously and says, "That is a really stupid question. We went so far beyond that it's not even funny." Martin is baffled and appalled, as well as jealous. He had a crush on Izzy, but he's even more upset about Kate having sex with Leonard "because
you have brains". All this time, everyone, especially Kate, has been going on about what a
flaming butthole Leonard is. Martin asks, "Why?? How can you...?? With that
revolting...?!" She tells him, "because people are complicated. People are complicated, and you'll never be a good writer until you understand that."
She leaves, then Leonard comes out and tells Martin he really missed the boat with Kate, and describes, in detail, some of the things Kate did to him, which made him see stars. He writes a check for Martin and disappears into the kitchen to make himself a drink. Instead of leaving, Martin sits down at Leonard's desk. He finds some of Leonard's writing, and begins to see that it's actually pretty good. Leonard comes in and tries to snatch it away, but can't. In the end, he gets out a packet of paper which turns out to be Martin's story, which had been sent to him a year or so before. He says, "Here. I did some line editing for you." Martin looks at it and sees that Leonard has actually done a valuable service for him. Leonard basically says, when I look at your writing, I see a lot of what I was like at your age. A big mistake that I made was not letting others see it and critique it, because I was too much of a pussy (a word that is used a lot by Leonard, in describing Martin and his writing, and which drives Martin up the wall). I'm willing to work with you and help you, but I'm going to be a ruthless asshole about it, and it's going to be painful for you. Do you want to continue as you were, keeping your writing hidden (like I've done), or do you want me to work with you?
And that's when the lights dim.
I really enjoyed it. The acting, especially Alan's was very good. Lily Rabe, who plays Kate, looks and sounds just like Kate Mulgrew, which is a little distracting at first, but it's alright. She had a few good comic moments, and got to give Alan Rickman a quick but passionate kiss. Which of course is of no particular interest to me, but there it is. One can only
imagine the tedium of having to do that night after night! But hey, it's all part of the job, isn't it? Hettiene Park merely had to submit to having him caress the hair at the back of her neck, which she seemed to tolerate fairly well, all things considered. The
sacrifices these people make for their craft! ;) Heh heh. It was worth seeing twice, which I did.
The first night I was way in the back. The second day I was in the seat I got the instant tickets went on sale. Unfortunately, not being an American Express Card member (excuuuuuuuuuuse me), I had missed the entire two weeks in which seats were available to them. So I was thirteen rows back. That's not bad at all, but at that particular spot in the theater, the acoustics weren't really quite good enough to justify the high price. Still, I'm glad I went twice, and will always do that for future AR plays.
