Friday, April 25, 2008

Beebo Brinker and production values

The Dramatists Guild was giving away tickets to see Beebo Brinker the off-Broadway production of the off-off Broadway cult hit, so I took my daughter to see it, since she read the original Beebo Brinker lesbian pulp fiction that the play was based on.

At the end of my recent JANE EYRE run, one of the actors emailed me and said I should feel proud of my accomplishment. At the time I was feeling very down since several of the actors in the JANE production had turned out to be huge creeps in my book, and it made me very depressed. But in retrospect, and after seeing BEEBO, he's right.

I can't claim to be impartial, but I really think that JANE was a better play. And not just because of the script, but because of everything.

I'm sure BEEBO has a much bigger budget than JANE had, and it is off-Broadway whereas JANE was off-off Broadway.

The BEEBO set was more minimalistic than Jane - although they did have a nifty bed that pulled out from below a set of stairs. But in general the set looked very cold and empty. While the BEEBO play, when it was on the right track, was hot and busy.

I think that the JANE set was just minimal enough to be versatile, but not so minimal that it took away from the script.



Our location was much better too, which was worth it even though I practically paid for the theatre in my own blood it was so damn expensive. But it was right down the street from the Al Hirshfeld, a bona fide Broadway theatre.

And the acting in JANE, for the most part, was every bit as good as the BEEBO acting. Although the BEEBO cast included Bill Dawes, my MySpace friend. Who looks very hot without a shirt, I might add. He had to play the straight man in BEEBO (in both senses of the word) but he's really funny, althought a little defensive about teh gay..