This one was interesting. I liked it plenty more than I didn't, but Minnie & Liraz isn't straightforward and neither are my feelings about it.
It's all about tone - always a tricky thing to nail. Maybe it's revealing that, in patches, the play brought Wes Anderson to mind; the comparison came to mind during the bit where Ichabod tells Rachel exactly how he will contact her. The similarity lies, I think, in the balancing of a style that is deliberately a touch artificial and stylised and always threatens - promises? - to tilt into the absurd with a sincere emotional thrust that draws its impact partly from the pathos in the characters' situations (and personalities) that is itself heightened (stylised) in the way they are presented, and here it definitely worked for me until the turn it takes at the end with the revelations about Liraz and her subsequent fight with Minnie - which is the bit that's left me in two minds.
There's a good streak of humour running through the whole play, much of which I guess you could call 'dark' insofar as it often deals lightly with death, as well as being on the caustic side in how it depicts many of the characters' interactions with each other. But the tilt into that showdown between the two titular characters didn't feel of a piece with the rest, and nor did the lack of resolution with the preceding reveals about what Rachel and Morris had been keeping from Minnie. So I'm not sure.
Having said that, Minnie & Liraz has many rewards. I've followed Lally Katz for a few years now, from the Apocalypse Bear Trilogy through her main stage productions A Golem Story, Stories I Want to Tell You in Person, Neighbourhood Watch and Timeshare (that most recent one probably also my favourite), and liked her more and more as she's gone on - including through some of that retrospective reappraisal that sometimes goes on in these types of situation - this wasn't a disappointment. It's sharply written and funny (and by chance we went to the play's premiere, complete with welcoming/caveatory remarks from director Anne-Louise Sarks at the start, so the timing on some of those lines will only get better, and the ways in which a couple of the characters are just a touch too broad will probably get tightened), dynamic, involving, and blessed by a terrific cast that is able to sell the comedy as well as the humanity in the characters (I thought the set piece of Morris's monologue was genuinely powerful). Well worth the viewing.
(w/ Erandathie, Laura F, Meribah and Cass)
It's all about tone - always a tricky thing to nail. Maybe it's revealing that, in patches, the play brought Wes Anderson to mind; the comparison came to mind during the bit where Ichabod tells Rachel exactly how he will contact her. The similarity lies, I think, in the balancing of a style that is deliberately a touch artificial and stylised and always threatens - promises? - to tilt into the absurd with a sincere emotional thrust that draws its impact partly from the pathos in the characters' situations (and personalities) that is itself heightened (stylised) in the way they are presented, and here it definitely worked for me until the turn it takes at the end with the revelations about Liraz and her subsequent fight with Minnie - which is the bit that's left me in two minds.
There's a good streak of humour running through the whole play, much of which I guess you could call 'dark' insofar as it often deals lightly with death, as well as being on the caustic side in how it depicts many of the characters' interactions with each other. But the tilt into that showdown between the two titular characters didn't feel of a piece with the rest, and nor did the lack of resolution with the preceding reveals about what Rachel and Morris had been keeping from Minnie. So I'm not sure.
Having said that, Minnie & Liraz has many rewards. I've followed Lally Katz for a few years now, from the Apocalypse Bear Trilogy through her main stage productions A Golem Story, Stories I Want to Tell You in Person, Neighbourhood Watch and Timeshare (that most recent one probably also my favourite), and liked her more and more as she's gone on - including through some of that retrospective reappraisal that sometimes goes on in these types of situation - this wasn't a disappointment. It's sharply written and funny (and by chance we went to the play's premiere, complete with welcoming/caveatory remarks from director Anne-Louise Sarks at the start, so the timing on some of those lines will only get better, and the ways in which a couple of the characters are just a touch too broad will probably get tightened), dynamic, involving, and blessed by a terrific cast that is able to sell the comedy as well as the humanity in the characters (I thought the set piece of Morris's monologue was genuinely powerful). Well worth the viewing.
(w/ Erandathie, Laura F, Meribah and Cass)
