Word: awkward
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...rest is more ordinary. Rigg is wonderful in quiet moments but awkward in striving for the unchained melodrama that Zoe Caldwell achieved in a 1982 revival. The balance of the cast, also from London, is workmanlike, save for Nuala Willis, whose keening songs redeem that most archaic of theatrical ploys, the chorus. The set, a vast wall of rusted metal panels that bang like thunder and tumble away at key moments, is effective but excessive, a tacit confession of shaky faith in the power of the play's words. That doubt is foolish. Medea is the greatest role ever written...
...slow death of William from AIDS is supposed to be transformative for Ray and Cora. William shows up as the relationship disintegrates and both relationship and William proceed to die. Rather than stirring immediate sympathy, the introduction of William is awkward because he has hardly been mentioned before and is promptly given center stage. Fisher can't really handle such a big topic, and William serves mainly to delay the finality of Ray and Cora's split...
There is an awkward tension in Delusions which stems from the fact that we are readers can probably see more about Cora than Fisher can because she wrote herself into the book. We watch Cora make her mistakes, be confronted by them, and make a winning remark, but she never really takes action with her new knowledge...
However, the intimate environment also submits the performers to closer scrutiny. At such a close distance, dead time on stage is magnified and awkward and gestures meant to fill in the spaces appear contrived. While one character is singing a solo, the other singers to not seem to know what to do with themselves, or to how to fit in, albeit discreetly, with the rest of the scene...
...true romantic style, fall in love while flying/dancing/singing their way across the night sky. Never mind that they've known each other all of about five minutes; their ice-skating-like pas de deux across the golden, glittering surface of a lake is much more interesting than the giggling, awkward scene where they meet...