Word: bitted
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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With a name like Seductions, one might be tempted to think that the trio of plays currently running at The Works Theater in Somerville would make for an evening of romance and poetry. But it doesnt take long to remember that for modern authors, love is every bit as capable of clearing a path of destruction and despair as that other great theme of literature, death. Seductions is less about sexual temptation than it is about power and its abuses. From the stale to the distressing to the absurd, it paints a picture of love not as something divine...
...Rene Zellweger, whose nose seems to be a bit too upturned for her own good, does a half-hearted Jennifer Aniston in many of her scenes. There are easy emotion intensifiers like whooshing twinkles and saccharine pop-songs. The cast is broken down into good-looking people who are leads and leads' ex-girlfriends, and normal-looking people who are character actors. It's all according to formula, which is not to say that formulas are inherently bad, just that when you can practically see the ready-made framework on which the movie is draped, it gets boring...
...next to the bad angel (Austin Guest '03) who ingeniously concealed his presence so that he was embodied only in the spotlight he directed at Faustus. This, combined with the cover art of the program, was just another piece of a conceptually consistent production, even if it seemed a bit cryptic at the time...
...hard to figure out. Yes, indeed, professional politicians need to step on a few hands and cut a few corners in the name of the greater good (even if that means campaigning at the wake of a deceased friend), and yes, indeed, even virtuous people have a bit of vice in them. But if you're kind to your friends, then what does it matter? This is about as deeply as the play probes these potentially interesting moral issues, and such perfunctory treatment leaves the viewer vaguely dissatisfied, if not bored...
...Pacino's Lowell Bergman is unrelenting, highly moral, and loyal to Wigand during turbulent times. At first, Bergman's motives for courting Wigand seem a bit suspect and self-serving; there is an intriguing ambiguity to the character that is soon dropped and forgotten, much to the detriment of the character...