In her review of "Equivocation," Hedy Weiss starts us out by giving us a definition of the title word. This is useful information, as the play explores the concept of equivocation in great detail. But as far as I'm concerned, that definition was the only part of the review that matched up to my experience of the show.
First of all, let's talk about specificity. As Ming hilariously pointed out, there are a lot of adverb-adjective combinations in here that just muddle the writing. But I found some of them to be downright misleading. How can you get away with calling the actress who played Judith "beautifully understated yet strong" when every other review tagged her as flat and forgettable? How can you talk about the "feminist undertow" in a play with one female character? And what, pray tell, does the phrase "snap, crackle and pop" do to the reader's understanding of this production? I'll give you "The Daily Show," I'll give you Aaron Sorkin, even if I think it's insulting to "The West Wing," but I will NOT give you breakfast cereal.
The part of this review that I found the most disappointing was in the premise itself. Weiss starts the review with a definition of equivocation, and a taste of how important it will be in the plot of the play. But we get very little information about Shag's struggle to find a balance in his work. We hear nothing of his responsibilities to his company, his studies under Garnet, or his fear for his own soul. We only hear that "Shagspeare turns out to be a master equivocator." This is simply untrue. Shag never learns how to equivocate- he just writes "Macbeth" instead. This was one of my biggest gripes with the play, and Weiss overlooks it entirely, just like James overlooks it in the play because "Macbeth" is full of magic and witches. By being general when she could have been specific, and by falling for the production's shoddy misdirection when it comes to equivocation, I feel like this review misses the mark.
No comments:
Post a Comment