Word: ribman
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Sweettable is not a complete disaster; Ribman is a smart guy, and there are many good ideas and clever chunks of writing in this work. The superb cast and designers work hard to bring out the best of this dramatic turnip, and damned if they don't squeeze out a little dramatic blood--but it's sweated drop by drop from the brows of the actors...
...crew deserve an extra bonus for work that went into the design of this set piece, as stunning a room as you will see in the great palaces of Europe. Conklin was also responsible for the cunning costumes, which express the personality of the characters much more stylishly than Ribman's autistic dialogue. One tactic for surviving Sweettable is to turn off your mind and float into a visual reverie...
...most frustrating thing about Sweettable is that it contains the seeds of a good play--or several good plays, for that matter. Ribman never decided whether he was composing a metaphor for modern Europe, a guilty-secrets melodrama, a French philosophical play or an English drawing-room comedy. So he tosses elements of all these genres into his pot, and serves up the dramatic equivalent of broccoli cheese pasta--limp, stringy, with an occasional lumpy mass that may once have been a theme or plot twist now rendered unrecognizable by incompetent writing. Sweettable is talking-head drama of the worst...
From time to time a good idea or clever dramatic conflict appears in Sweettable. But just as the audience starts to get interested, the moment is mercilessly crushed beneath the heel of Ribman's pompous phrasing and erratic characterization. This play is bad in a painful way, as it time and again raises your expectation that something worthwhile is about to happen, then disappoints you by dropping the theme or hiding behind a convenient cliche. The wasted talents of the director, cast, designers and crew make the spectacle all the more pitiful. Sweettable never bores you; it just makes...
...dramatic ground, it fires off brilliant metaphysical gags at a pace that would amaze even Woody Allen. If you want to watch the work of a man who knows the secrets of dialogue, suspense and humor, then flock to the next showing of The Day Room. Certainly Ronald Ribman, professional Playwright, could do worse than to buy a ticket and learn how plays ought to be written...