Word: sonly
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...style echoes the fact that Rapp wrote Nocturne when he was reading Faulkner. Although the Son never lapses into an inchoate stream, his monologue is a form of self-flagellation reminiscent of The Sound and the Fury's Jason Compson. In Nocturne the monologue is lyrical, moving with the sheer inevitability of a musical composition. Dallas Roberts' Son makes each word into a plaintive wail. Even when the character lapses into humor (at one point even mimicking stand up comedy), the humor's forced nature hints at more shocks to come. The subject matter is graphic and serious business...
...second half of the play is more conventional and elaborates on the Son's affliction. His mental tension becomes sexual impotence, as revealed in a sensitively executed nude scene. At times he has to endure pains even Candide never had to face, well beyond the point where it becomes implausible. And the fact remains that while nudity has shock value, the Son's angst shows him to be figuratively exposed throughout the whole first half anyway...
Also in the second half the function of words changes. Words, which had been a means of drowning the self, begin to provide solace. The Son writes a basically autobiographical novel that puts him in contact with a girl who revives him to some extent. When the estranged father reads the book, it enables communication at last, fifteen years after the accident. It allows the father to name his grief and thus attain power over it. For the Son, his literary persona becomes the edifice on which he will reconstruct his shattered life...
...weakest parts of the play occur when the Son lashes out in stock criticism of bourgeois society. When he flees to New York after the accident, he exults over his poverty and freedom in terms a college sophomore might use. Those moments do not do justice to the complexity of character wrought in the first half...
...tried to buy peace with a hefty contribution to the strike fund. SAG took the money and then said, "Burn in Hell!" Which is ironic, of course, since Hurley stars in Bedazzled opening today... I find it slightly disturbing that the London tabloids named Rocco Ritchie, Madonna's newborn son, as one of Britain's most eligible bachelors. The poor thing has enough to worry about with burping, teething, and his mother's cloying, fake accent-money-grubbers and prenups should be the last thing on this mind.... Both Christina Aguilera and Jennifer Lopez were seen pigging out on McDonald...