Goldstar

• Rated 4.0
• Written on Oct 25 2008

This is a play for smart, grown-ups. Ones who’ve experienced the full circle of love and loss, be it for a person, a house or (most relevant to this week in the Bay Area) a job or retirement nest egg.

The story could have easily devolved into a red state-blue state farce; however, Jane Anderson’s deft writing/directing and the chemistry of this ensemble prevents them from becoming caricatures.

The all-star cast dazzles. Laurie Metcalf steals the show as a hippy dippy, smart-mouthed sprite who flits around the outside of the yurt (incredible set design!) entertaining her cousins, comforting her husband, and alternatively stirring up the philosophical pot.

The first preview was more polished than any other Bay Area show I’ve seen this year. A little over two hours (with one intermission). Take your tissues and see it with your therapist or someone you love…it’s too intense for a first date.

• Rated 3.0
• Written on Oct 31 2008

After a slow start filled with mundane chit-chat between the conservative couple, The Quality of Life built to a dramatic first-act climax, and a continuing-to-build, touching play, in which we truly connect with the dying man and his wife.

Too, the theme is important and underdiscussed: the absurdity of assisted-suicide being illegal and contrary to church teaching. That theme has never more compellingly been rendered than in The Quality of Life.

Then why not four stars? One reason is that--like nearly all Bay Area theatre--the conservatives (especially if it's a white man) are cliched caricatures, straw men--improbably narrow, stupid ideologues, when in fact, in real life, the opposite is often true: So many liberals (especially in the Bay Area) are remarkably intolerant. Liberals censor, censure, and shun people who,for example, vote Republican or dare opine that today's rampant reverse discrimination in hiring and college-student admission are a net negative to society. I'm a moderate Democrat but I've found that--except at the very-far-right--conservatives are more tolerant of dissenting views than are liberals. Hence, the conservative characters in The Quality of Life, while comforting to non-thinking liberal viewers, for many thoughtful people, will just not ring true.

The acting was strong, especially the liberal woman and the liberal man. He was superlative, not just in the easy-to-be-liked dying scene, but especially in the other scenes. And his rendering of his Last Lecture should go into the acting textbooks--He took a very difficult task--presenting a quite long lecture--into an engaging experience, much more engaging than the vast majority of real professors. Yet he never, for a moment, appeared that he was acting. As Spencer Tracy urged, "Never let 'em catch you acting."

PLOT SPOILER: DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW A KEY PLOT TWIST

One more negative: The idea that a healthy midlife woman would want to commit suicide to co-die with her dead husband, while having plenty of literary precedent (e.g., Romeo & Juliet,) in the play's modern setting, struck me as far-fetched.

• Rated 3.0
• Written on Oct 28 2008

Wonderful cast with a story to tell.