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When I saw Christopher Shinn's new play, Picked, in New York last week, I had no intention of writing about it. Chris and I were at NYU together for a couple years, we've stayed in touch a bit over the last decade, and I've enjoyed following his career. I don't like writing about friends' work, because anything short of "It's the most perfect and brilliant piece of writing since the invention of the alphabet," feels in some way like a betrayal.
But most of the reviews for the play have been so shallow and superficial that I just want to line up the New York theatre reviewers and whack them all upside the head. Maybe not all -- Ben Brantley's review in The Times is thoughtful and intelligent. Beyond that review, though, it's thin pickings.
I'm not looking for positive reviews -- sure, I liked the play, I like Chris, I would like the world to agree with me on both points. But I'll take a thoughtful and insightful negative review over a vapid positive review any day. Most of the reviews I read of the show were vaguely negative, sort of middling. But the reasons they offered for their vague negativity and their middling were banal, suggesting the reviewer didn't really pay a whole lot of attention. And the positive reviews weren't really much better. (No, I'm not going to link to them; they were too enervating to make me want to seek them out again. You, too, can use Google if you're curious.)
I didn't take notes and I didn't go in thinking I'd write about the show, so this is just a collection of remembered impressions after one viewing, not a review. I feel compelled to say something to acknowledge the complexity of the play, and the complexity of my response to it (both good and bad), because I haven't seen enough other people do so yet.
Picked tells the story of a young actor named Kevin (Michael Stahl-David) who attracts the attention of a Hollywood director, John (Mark Blum), who bears a certain resemblance to James Cameron (the movie he wants Kevin to star in is called, if I remember correctly, Harbor, which happens to have the same amount of letters as Avatar, and also to end in r). The first scene offers Blum lots of opportunities to chew the scenery -- as one of my companions at the show said, "This is the sort of thing actors should have to pay to get to perform!" John is grandiose, egomaniacal, yet also somewhat endearing, and his logorrhea is a magnificent bit of writing. At the performance I saw, Blum seemed to struggle to find the performance, but once he did, he was mesmerizing, giving John a vocal and physical presence that dominated and dazzled Kevin enough that we could understand why Kevin would give in to the somewhat bizarre propositions John makes about the movie. It's the sort of stuff ambitious actors might want to excerpt for audition monologues in the years to come...
The next few scenes develop Kevin's participation in the process of making the film and show his relationship with his girlfriend, Jen, played by Liz Stauber. This was actually the dullest element of the play for me, but without having read the script I don't know if my problem lies with the conception of the character or the performance. Stauber's performance is easily the weakest in the play (or was, at least, on the day I saw it) -- stiff, unsub
3 Comments on Picked by Christopher Shinn, last added: 4/28/2011
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I saw the same performance you did. My problem with the play was that it didn't seem warm to the touch. The first act was interesting but not compelling the second act was not interesting.
Blum is a veteran New York stage actor and was fine as the auteur. But his role which dominated the first half hour of the play turned out to be a supporting one. Hanover was fine in a couple of small roles. Lipinsky as the other actor was quite good - actors should be able to play actors.
All of this was in support of Stahl David's young actor. I don't think his was a dynamic performance and so little was hapening between him and the girl friend that I thought (hoped) briefly that he was going to run off with Lipinski.
In fact, nothing happens in the second act and in retrospect not much happened in the first act. A promising but obscure actor is cast in a big budget film after which he can't get work. His relationship with his girlfriend goes down the tubes and he decides to go back to school. So what? More dynamic performances might have made a difference but I don't think that was the central problem.
Belasco was a philistine but I believe there is some truth in his motto, "If you can't write your idea on the back of your business card, you don't have an idea."
Rick Bowes
Oh, you're a jaded one, Mr. B! I like my plays on the cold side, I suppose, so I didn't perceive it as quite so distanced or dead as you. And I don't need stuff to happen; Chekhov and Beckett are my favorite playwrights after Shakespeare, so I've got a high tolerance for stasis.
I, too, hoped there would be some more homoeros between Kevin and Nick; a certain tension of attraction seemed there, which is something I very much liked about the show. And, perhaps because of my own life trajectory, I'm a sucker for Kevin's story -- somebody who sets out determinedly toward one sort of life and discovers that it really isn't the one they want. Man, that's like me every five years or so...
Yes. But like Beckett's and Chekov's people you are a more interesting character - and I don't think it's just your performance.
Rick