Today I went to “The Long Red Road” written by Brett Leonard and directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman. BTW I saw Hoffman in person just out side of the Blue Frog the other day. But I wanted to find out what the play was about and try to understand how the play was written and produced. This is the first professional play i’ve been to and I was blown away by the performance. The lighting and transitions between the scenes keep everything right in tune. There were small mistakes and minor acting flaws. But when it all came together it was wonderful. The craziest part of the whole experience was the relationship between the plot and my own experiences. Maybe this happens to anyone who deals with alcoholism and broken dysfunctional families.
So you walk in and you are with mid to upper aged higher income folks and you walk into a room and watch a slice of life which could have been any given day of our families life. And then you over hear the reaction of the crowd and their analysis of their observations, and you know what they think of that craziness. We must have all dealt with it to some degree or another, but watching the story on fold I found my self checking to make sure that when the actors put down a cigarett I wanted to make sure they put it all the way out. Just like when I was growing up. You could tell people in the crowd were uncomfortable but it just brought me back.
The “Basic” brand of cigaretts. The chandelier, the kitchen table & Chairs, the bathroom medicine cabinet, the TV, the low quality art, the mixed construction of the set, the yelling, the swearing, separated relationships, the promises that were never kept, ..etc.. it was if I could have given the words to the writer and now all of downtown Chicago was watching my show.
The greatest part of the show is that unlike life they were able to get through some of the toughest choices in only a few hours and once its done its done… The long Red road is not for the actors but for the audience. Its long and as they explain filled with blood, but worth taking because its healthier then what was shown on stage.
