Word: oneness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...YORK the air breathes back at you. Along 45th St., in the heart of the theater district, the limousines queue up at the curb like a funereal parade. As if staged by some cynical scenarist, a drunk's reflection appears in the shiny black of one of the cars. He ambles slowly, his image distorts as it sweeps over the doors, door handles, smoked windows and tail lights of one limo and forms again on the next, moving down the line until it drops off, lost in the gutter. Across from the Royale Theater, where a golden marquee has promoted...
Eight years later, the time chimes yesterday and Paul and Susan have loved and divorced. After one last torrid afternoon, Paul wraps himself in a blanket and flops onto a couch to look at slides--his life with Susan etched eternally in ektachrome...
...that final scene, both realize the mysterious potency of this enigmatic decade. Susan buttons into her designer suit, the one with the tweed shirt, that reaches just to the top of her boots. She dashes on bold lipstick, a bottled scent, and jewelry she would have laughed at on that Bali beach. She smiles, says goodbye, calls Paul "Babe" one final time and exits to join her new lover for dinner. The decade has killed marriage, turned romance into a business and banished communication between lovers from the bedroom...
Paradoxically, a strange impotency also wafts through Michael Weller's extraordinarily naturalistic dialogue. No one tells the right jokes, no one makes the right phone call, no one finishes a project before the next begins and ultimately, Weller reveals that the youth of the '60s have, in the interest of self, failed to spawn a new generation with their former vitality. Weller captured that spirit perfectly in his first hit, Moonchildren, about college students in the '60s. Loose Ends surpasses Moonchildren in scope and finesse...
...One question rides with this play, however. Why was it moved from off-Broadway? Money? Strider should be an intimate evening of theater: the simplicity of this production looks out of place amidst the grandeur of a Broadway theater...