René Grayre
  • Home
  • Theatre Reviews
  • Galleries
    • Philippe Staib Gallery
    • The Space at 8 Greene
    • Rostaing/Steinitz/Grayre Gallery
    • Chautauqua Institution
    • Robert Steele Gallery
  • Gallery Press
  • From Me 2 U
    • FM2U Exhibition
  • The Steamroller Project:
  • Contact

Rancho Viejo

11/22/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture


See it if
​You've an open mind & patience: like an artichoke, this show is a slow reveal leading to surprising rewards & striking visuals and humor.

Don't See it if
A funny, well acted & well cast rumination on art & existence isn't enough to sit through 3 acts that ripple by as fast as a Zen garden.

Clocking in now at a surprisingly quick 3:05, this play certainly isn't for everyone. No fast paced, obvious situational drama here, rather a subtlety scathing, well observed, slowly revealing study of character and culture. 

There's more than a bit of Beckett here, the absurd bleak existential landscape this time transported to an upscale suburban community, numbing in its sameness. Some of the air and stillness in David Hockney's California paintings come to mind.

It could be argued that Rancho Viejo takes a very long route to consider its themes of art, the why's of existence, the ifs of happiness and the meaning, if any, of it all and the wanting of more; but its considered structure and purely theatrical visuals – things unexpected and/or not quite seen before – are worth it, and worth the wait.

The cast is pitch perfect – at times annoyingly so, especially Blum; Winningham wears her doleful longing well and Ethan Dubin's silent, enigmatic, funny and menacing Tater stands out.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    RGrayre
    ​   eviews

    Archives

    June 2021
    March 2020
    February 2019
    July 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

© René Grayre All rights reserved