It's like watching a play...
935537
This is an enjoyable film that comes across like a play at times.  I liked the way it wrapped up quite a bit.  I'm pretty sure it was at least partly meant as a nod to Batman.
1517529
Saw the play in Las Vegas.....and the music outshoned the play. Although I thought the story was weak in the beginning - the plot picked up to make for a truly enjoyable experience. My wife and I are still singing the Abba hits...We missed the production in New Orleans...
4154989
This started out as a really strong, solid play for me. It is essentially seven plays in one, where the "audience" gets to choose which one they wish to watch by "zapping" or "changing the channel" with remotes provided. As the plays go on they slowly disintegrate and start to impede on each other. While this is amusing, I actually became invested in the plays and sort of wish we could have seen them acted out to fruition. I imagine seeing the play in real life would be hilarious and completely on point.
2016325
This is a great play, both for reading, and definitely for viewing. As a reader, pay close attention to the Author's stage directions, and notes. The play viewer won't hear or see these, and they are deliciously Williams.
568621
Love it!  I recommend watching it along with listening to it.  The music is fantastic.  You won't regret buy this if you love the play.
4686518
This is a funny play. I liked this book a lot and I will definitely go and see the play when I have the chance. The characters are charismatic and flawed but this just add to the enjoyment. I would recommend it anyday.
3580469
I decided to go to the original source after hearing about the great reviews for the recently released movie starring Nicole Kidman. Then when I saw the original NYC cast starred Tyne Daly -- need I say more. The play is a fascinating look into a blue collar family struggling to hold it together after the death of their child. Reading the scene where the teenage driver that hit their son visits their home for some closure is beyond uncomfortable. The play has scene after scene of two-person scenes perfect for acting class. Read it, you'll be anticipating this playwright's newest play after you do.
1976741
I've been studying this play for English, that's why I read it.  I originally thought it would be boring, but I was totally wrong!  It's dramatic, tension-filled, and gives you a lot to think about, even if you're not a religious person.  The last scene is especially powerful.  Admittedly, when reading the play, some of the comic scenes come across as rather annoying - they really need to be seen on a stage - but it doesn't harm the book to any great degree.  I would have appreciated less comedy, but I still recommend this play.
3964296
Dogville is a study of human nature, of how people can react and of how power can corrupt (great film for the times we live in, eh?).
  When I first saw this film, I was taken aback by the look of it. The set is very sparce and it looks like a play. Along with the narriation, I was beginning to think I would not like this film, but I was sucked in. The performances are excellent and soon you forget about the name of the road being written on the "street", the lack of walls, etc and just start paying attention to what is happening in this quite little town.
  A terrific film.
326912
I have seen a preview copy of this play. I found it to be an interesting and creative look at what may have taken place in the interview that JPII had in prison with his would-be assassin. It also ties in with the "bishop in white" from the Fatima visionaries. For a school or theater group looking for a play to perform with a small cast and minimal scenery, this would be perfect.
2676908
Music! Effects! Character Voices!! Its like listening to a play of galactic proportions! I love it!
4187946
I'm going to take some hits for this (by rabid Shakespeare fans mostly), but this play, whether read in a straightforward manner, or analyzed to the hilt, is just somewhat better than mediocre.
Most folks who would read this work know that Shakespeare's plays are broken down, at the top, into two groups: tragedies and comedies. Hamlet is a tragedy -- the limited humor that one finds herein is pretty darn subtle, (e.g., the comment about Englishmen all being mad). I do not criticise "Hamlet" for that actuality, in fact, I prefer the tragedies. However, the play, as plays go, is simply just so-so. I think folks get 'caught up' in the fact that this is SHAKESPEARE, and therefore, they are SUPPOSED to like it if they have an ounce of culture.
For people who wish to delve into ecclectic classic works (of all genres), "Hamlet" is difficult to read (unless you're a genius, you sort of have to stumble along and concentrate on what has been said), due mostly to the archaic language. I think, to be a fan of Shakespeare, one must assidiously STUDY Shakespeare... and for those folks who just want 'to read some Shakespeare,' I think that "Julius Caesar" is a much better place to begin.
The story about Hamlet is essentially a good tale, if a bit drawn out, but some of the details are what make it most interesting. Also, I like any story where madness is a facet of the discussion (I LOVED "The Brothers Karamazov," Dostoyevsky!)
But to assert that this work is a wonderful read just because it's Shakespeare, is why I say: Methinks it is [just a bit] like a weasel.
3573992
Clearly, the acting here is not top rate, nor is the writing, and yet . . . it's got something, you know, that something that you can't put your finger on, but it keeps you coming back.  For one thing, you cannot guess where it's going.  Anybody can die at any time, and they do.  Also, it doesn't take itself tooo seriously.
And it's also interesting to see the various shades of Sarah/Tatiana.  I get the sense this show is short on rehearsal time, which is odd for a BBC production.  It so wants to be really good, and I think she would be.
So, it's kept me watching anyway.
2341762
You will appreciate this play if you've seen either the play or the movie. (All versions are great.) If you haven't seen the play or movie, then you will still appreciate this play!! (Not recommended for children.) This play is oddly creepy and sadistic, but thrilling at the same time. It tells the story of a young girl, named Rhoda, who is suspected of murdering THREE people. (A little boy in her school, an old woman who used to baby sit her, and a maintenance man who tries to playfully scare Rhoda...) Her mom is questioning her perfect little angel... Does her mom see something that nobody else does?
3297909
Reading "Titus Andronicus" for the first time will shock you. Ranging in mood from fury to vengeance to mere hatred, it's a hard play to love and defies the norms of Shakespearean tragedy by killing early and often. However flawed, it is a fascinating play that builds well and resolves in a remarkably satisfying if cruel way.

Titus Andronicus is a Roman of the old school, meaning if he loses sons in battle he believes the best way to honor them is by killing a hapless prisoner and giving his mother and surviving brothers over to his Emperor. But he fails to consider what might happen if this Emperor decides to give the woman his hand in marriage, the first of many perplexing turns taken in this perplexing play. In no time, Titus and his family are the victims of the mother's lusty cruelty. Titus is soon driven mad from the ordeal. Or is he playing mad to work an elaborate revenge?

You don't know quite where Shakespeare is going with this play, and you may not want to. It's not the brutality of deeds alone that create this separation, but the brutality of thought. One of the apparent "feel-good" moments happens when Titus's grandson tells Pop-pop regarding his tormentors "that if I were a man,/Their mother's bedchamber should not be safe..."

There's rape, too, and disfigurement and cannibalism. A lot of it doesn't even make sense in the warped context of the play. But if you read it as an examination of realpolitik in a world of cosmic derangement, it falls into place somewhat. Emperor Saturninus starts the play needing Titus's support, and it makes sense he might resent this somehow and opt to hurt his benefactor as soon as he thinks he has enough power to get away with it. This helps explain much, if not nearly all, that follows.

"Rome is but a wilderness of tigers/
Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey/
But me and mine."

It's not a good play for soliloquies. The first three acts have a lot of wordy banter, much of it delivered by Titus's brother Marcus. When he finds his niece raped and ravaged, Marcus goes into a long discourse of her wounds without any apparent concern about getting her help. This is the sort of thing that helps kill staged productions of "Titus," though it works better when read. His descriptive prattling helps illustrate the enormity of the crime, something which can be seen well enough on stage.

Written as a "revenge play," from a period when such staged nasties were all the rage, "Titus Andronicus" feels at times like a less-than-subtle mockery of public taste. This seems unlikely. Shakespeare was young when he wrote (or many say, co-wrote) this, his first tragedy, reportedly between 1592-94, and I suspect he was aiming to give the people what they wanted rather than mock them for it. Perhaps he was trying to do both; some of the scenes suggest a zany edge, but I see it more as Elizabethan showmanship by an author struggling to find his voice.

There are plenty of hints of Shakespeare's future greatness, less in the workmanlike prose than in the structure of the play, and the characterizations. The evil Aaron the Moor, this play's most brilliant creation, is a kind of Iago given to expressing his villainy overmuch. There's even mention near the end of a fellow Roman whose similar situation would be the subject of Shakespeare's last tragedy, Coriolanus.

The extremity of the play is "Titus's" great challenge, but also its most remarkable achievement. By play's end, however crazy and vicious even the better characters behave, you're right there with the groundlings of 400 years ago cheering as Titus unveils his famous recipe of revenge. Again, I don't think this works as well on stage, where it either is played as comedy or becomes unintentional comedy. On the page, one can imagine the scene going down with whatever degree of vivacity one likes. "Titus's" ability to bring you along for the ride overcomes its painful artificiality, and speaks to something dark and eternal in the human condition.
2128669
The play is about the two Shakespearean bit players trying to diciefer what there purpose is in the mist of the play Hamlet.
These two fools try to comicaly fight fate to save themselves while at the same time trying to find a purpose in the strange world of shakespeare.  I love this perspective of Hamlet.  It is truely a comical look at how even the insignifcant look for purpose when often there is none to be found.  There is a lot of great diaolog and I had to laugh when Rosencranzt almost stumbles on to his own version of to be or not to be.  But he can't quite get started.
They just can't figure out what is going on or what they are supposed to do.  The play is full of wit and philosophical banter which plays on Shakespeare and the theater in general.  Loved Hamlet and so this play really gets a rise out of me.  It may be worth reading Hamlet again if you haven't in a while just to get in the mood of the play.  It is basically the story of two guys wondering how they got in the middle of a story they don't understand.
I think shakespeare would have loved to have written  this play.
If you are unfamilur with Hamlet read it, if you are read Hamlet again it is a joy, than read this.
1285352
Mamet gives us blinding pace in this spare play, a mere 82 pages in print. It can easily be read in an hour. The rapid-fire exchanges between characters put the reader in the position of a rubber-necked viewer at a tennis match between serve-and-volley powerhouses. If merely keeping the reader/viewer engaged is the goal of good theater, Mamet succeeds, in spades.
But truly great theater resonates after the reader has laid the play aside or exited the playhouse.  In this regard, "Speed-the-Plow," superior work though it may be, falls just a bit short for me, although I confess I have not seen it performed on stage, and would jump at the chance to do so. In any event, as a piece of reading, the play is too slight in its ideas for me to classify it as top-notch.
The play is built on a simple idea. Two movie execs, Charlie Fox and Bobby Gould, meet in Gould's office. Fox has brought Gould, his superior, a sure-fire hit, which from all we can gather will be a typical piece of Hollywood pap sure to please the masses. Fox has sold the script idea to a big-time Hollywood performer who has given them a short-time to put the deal together.
Enter Karen, Gould's temporary office assistant. Gould has been giving an obtuse, esoteric novel a "courtesy read," and as a ploy to seduce her, Gould asks Karen to read the novel and give him a report on it. Fox offers Gould a friendly bet that he won't succeed with Karen. Somehow -- and this is a key weakness in the play -- Karen manages in the second act to convince the hard-boiled Gould to produce the film of the novel, at the expense of Fox's project. When Fox learns of this, the following day, he is of course outraged and manages in the end to convince Gould that the seemingly idealistic Karen is in fact no different than either of them and has used Gould sexually in return for the promise to produce the "art" film.
Much of the play's power derives from Mamet's undeniable gift with language. Fox and Gould sound absolutely real as Hollywood types: borderline slimeball, jaded, absolutely devoid of idealism, but very funny, precisely because of all these things.
Language, however, is only one element of successful theater. The motivations of Karen are obscure, but more importantly one is hard-pressed to believe that Gould, who spends much of the play developing in different ways the idea that he's not paid to produce art, would even momentarily be convinced to dump a sure box office smash and endure the humiliation that Fox heaps on him. All I could think of was, That Karen must have been some dame. Trouble is, I didn't get enough of her through Mamet's development to buy that.
I'm a big Mamet fan, and even work that is not his best is for me worth reading. "Speed-the-Plow" was, simply put, intoxicating the first time I read it because of its rhythmic intensity. Even if its intoxication fades a bit in the aftermath of reading, enough of a glow lingers to make the time spent worthwhile.