Geffen Playhouse - Main Stage (Los Angeles, CA)
Tom Stoppard (one of the world's finest playwrights) has adapted this play with his characteristic poignancy and humor. It's 1959, and in a French military hospital, Gustave, Philippe and Henri are hatching a plan to escape--but instead spend their days taunting the nurses and spinning the dream of their impossible exodus. A play about mortality, the legacy of war and the spirit of optimism. Exquisite dialogue and timing earned an Olivier Award for comedy.
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The last event was Sunday May 13, 2007 / 2:00pm. (view all dates)
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I found this show to be sweet and charming. I think a couple of the actors forgot some lines during the performance, but it was hard to tell because they were playing characters who were old and had memory problems. All in all, I really enjoyed the show.
Great venue; great seats; great actors!
Why bother putting on something so dated with no current relevence when there is far better material available? And to highlight Stoppard's name was a misleading tactic by the producers. That is the reason I rushed to get tickets... only to find out later that he had translated not written it... like an ugly bait & Switch. My two guests were bored to death too....what a waste.
BORING. I know of two other people who went. One enjoyed it and thought it was somewhat funny. The other was totally bored.
I have been to three other plays at the Geffen this year. I guess they can't all be good.
The play was a great tour-de-force for three veteran actor/comedians. They were well-cast and served the script well. I enjoyed the way they played off each other and the dialogue they zinged at each other. It was fast-paced for a play that was almost all dialogue. It was wise to mount it without an intermission. I would recommend it to Len Cariou, George Segal, and Richard Benjamin fans, also Tom Stoppard fans, although he has other plays that are deeper, wittier, and more thought-provoking. This was a good play for a Sunday afternoon.
The actors were better than the material. A french piece, translated by an English Playright, performed by Americans in Westwood, didn't fare well in performance. Characters also not developed well. One acts are not my favorite.
Great play. Terrible execution. It was uncomfortable to watch three pros give awful performances.
Short, sweet, sad beneath surface humor. Touches on aging, infirmity, circumstantial limits to choices, security vs taking chances with the unknown; blaming others but tolerating their flaws.
More to it than initially meets the eye. Well acted, with good set.
Enjoyable
Entertaining - the characters were interesting and funny
For the fifteen minutes that I was able to endure this "comedy," I found absolutely nothing the actors said or did humorous.
The Geffen Playhouse is newly renovated, closing for over a year, and re-opening in November of 2005. The renovations are stunning, and provide for improved accoustics and sitelines. In addition to the Main Stage there is now the more intimate Audrey Skirball-Kenis Theater, which will focus on newer works for the Los Angeles community.
In just a few years, the Geffen Playhouse ha... More
Heroes completed its premiere and Olivier Award-winning run at the Wyndham’s Theatre in London in January of 2006. The Geffen Playhouse is honored to bring the show directly to Los Angeles for its American Premiere, starring Richard Benjamin, Len Cariou and George Segal. Tom Stoppard (one of the world’s finest living playwrights and proud owner of both an Olivier Award and an Oscar) has adapted Gérald Sibleyras’s Le Vent De Peupliers (The Wind in the Poplars) as an English language version. What do you do when your life is done but you’re not? It is a play about human mortality, the legacy of war and the spirit of optimism. The dialogue and timing are exquisite. Hence the Olivier Award for comedy.
The year is 1959, and in a French military hospital, Gustave, Philippe and Henri are a bickering trio - World War I vets and long-term residents of this hospital. They live in a world unpunctured by passing time. Henri has a shrapnel wound in the leg. A head injury has left Philippe prone to fainting spells and while Gustave appears to be fine, the thought of leaving the hospital clearly terrifies him. So the men spend their days taunting the nuns who look after them and dreaming of their escape--which will never come.
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