Word: scripted
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While the Broadway production is visually ugly, far less magical and on the whole less convincing than the Los Angeles staging that earned the play the Pulitzer, Kushner's witty, energized and unpredictable script makes 3 1/2 hours fly by. Indeed, one leaves the theater wishing that the drama's second half, of similar length, were already up and running...
...Fogg is characterless at first, but by the end gives some emotional depth to the tight British explorer. Wynne Love as Maureen has perfected her Irish accent, and simultaneously sings and acts with soul. The chorus is unanimated in the background, providing no action or interest of note. The script doesn't allow for the actors to do very much else besides sing, and as the show progresses we are struck with the distinct impression that this is a series of musical numbers with very little to tie them together. Awkward pauses between scenes, instrumental recaps of already-performed songs...
...unusual. Paper mache animals perch on pebbles bordering a room crowded with sparkling colored candles, odds and ends of flowered furniture. As soon as Janine Poreba and Jennifer Sun walk onstage and begin to speak, however, it is their engrossing performances which overflow the room. Athol Fugard's brilliant script is given life by an extremely talented cast, who bring a piece of South Africa's karoo home to Harvard...
...most audience members, however, the artistry of the production overcame its harshness. Many particularly enjoyed the ending, which manages to be at once cynical, unhappy, exultant and uplifting -- a bundle of contradictions faithful to the novel by the late Manuel Puig. He consulted on the script and suggested a key plot change from the film: when the mismatched cell mates briefly turn romantic, the bond is not love but a quid pro quo transaction, each using the other to serve a purpose the other has not embraced. Only after the deal goes ruinously wrong do they discover true devotion...
...made his mark, if not his name, in movies too. Sister Act, the Whoopi Goldberg comedy for which Rudnick wrote the original script, was last summer's boffo surprise. Other hands diluted the screenplay, which Rudnick eventually signed with the pseudonym Joseph Howard; but the movie grossed $140 million, so now, "although there is no Joseph Howard, his career is soaring." Rudnick's uncredited rewrite of The Addams Family ($115 million) is "the reason that movie was a hit," says Scott Rudin, who produced it and Sister Act and who hired Rudnick to write the sequel, Addams Family Values...