items tagged with Patrick Marber

NOTES ON A SCANDAL

In Richard Eyre's Notes on a Scandal, Judi Dench appears to be having an amazingly fine time playing an evil harridan. Why does the movie itself have to be such a dud? In the film, Dench portrays prickly history teacher Barbara Covett, who becomes pathologically obsessed with Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), a younger colleague in the art department. (As Barbara's last name suggests, Eyre's film, based on the novel by Zoë Heller, won't be much concerned with subtlety.) When Barbara discovers that the married Sheba has been carrying on with a 15-year-old student (Andrew Simpson), she uses the knowledge to surreptitiously gain Sheba's trust, in the hopes of turning their friendship into something more, shall we say, Sapphic. Subsequently, threats are made, careers are jeopardized, relationships are destroyed ... and why oh why isn't the movie more fun?

To understand the nature of My Verona Productions’ new stage comedy Dingo Boogaloo 2: Taco’s Revenge – indeed, to gain insight into My Verona’s co-founders, Sean Leary and Tristan Layne Tapscott – one may as well begin with Chickenzilla.
Read More About The New, The Challenging, And The Just Plain Weird: My Verona Productions' "Dingo Boogaloo"...

Few stage sights are as thrilling as a cast of genuinely hungry actors, especially when they have genuinely meaty material to tear into. My Verona Productions’ Closer is a biting, at times painful, piece, yet it’s suffused with joy; the actors seem to be relishing the opportunity to verbally claw, scrape, and expose (often self-inflicted) wounds.

CLOSER

In Mike Nichols’ adaptation of Patrick Marber’s play Closer, we are first introduced to Dan (Jude Law) and Alice (Natalie Portman). He’s an obit writer; she’s a former stripper.