Word: two
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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Escape from Happiness, produced two weekends ago at the Loeb Ex, is a dark and hilarious satire about a group of deeply troubled people who are aware of their own dysfunction yet seem possessed by a zany energy that gets them into and out of all sorts of mishaps. The action revolves around a family of six that lives on the bad side of town and becomes embroiled with drug dealers, porn traffickers and small-time crooks-in addition to a couple of off-kelter cops...
...light and amusing even in the most insane situations. A case in point is the discovery of Junior's body. As Gail tries to help her husband, Nora talks incessantly, theorizing about calling 911, about the seriousness of Junior's bruises, about her relationship with Gail and her other two daughters. She talks Junior to his feet and leaves him, bloody and semi-conscious, to dance while waiting for the ambulance...
Just as the four women seem irretrievably lost in their mental tangle, a threat pulls them back together. This threat comes as the two cops find drugs in the house's basement and arrest Nora. To this challenge, the other characters respond each in her own fashion. Elizabeth captures and tortures one of Junior's assailants in the hope of making him confess to the drug dealership. Mary Ann confronts her father and finally comes to terms with him. Gail fetches Junior from the hospital, who, in an ironic twist, proves to have been in a secret alliance with...
...Queens of the Stone Age, who played a 50-minute set admirable for its instrumental layering, but lacking in any real melodic structure-a perfect point of departure for Grohl and his boys. The Queens' simple black curtain background was replaced by the Foo Fighters' somewhat whimsical setup of two drum kits, five white boxes suspended in the air for reflecting lights and lasers and bouquets of flowers scattered about the stage. The somewhat tepid crowd immediately warmed up when the Foo Fighters burst onstage with "Stacked Actors," a guitar-heavy power ballad bemoaning the superficiality of Los Angeles...
Grohl did, however, engage in playful banter with Taylor Hawkins, the band's long-time drummer and the most rock-starish of the Fighters, with his long bleached hair and penchant for dark sunglasses. The two duked it out on the drums at one point, answering each other's rhythms in an impressive, but somewhat self-indulgent display. For those who like the Foo Fighters' softer, more melodic side, the show came up a little short. But for those who value the band's ability to rock out and appreciate a touch of arrested adolescence, the concert delivered everything...