Share
Stitching: Mission Abort
A play that should shock–but doesn't
By Alexis Soloski
Tuesday, July 1st 2008 at 2:15pm
Sew what? asks this drama by Anthony Neilson. The playwright is a proponent of Britain's in-yer-face theater, a naughtily assaultive style that confronts the audience with extreme situations and language. In Stitching, now making its American debut, a young couple chooses whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. This decision will ultimately lead our heroine to practice her home-ec skills on her lady parts.
Director Tim Haskell typically stages pop-culture-saturated plays, adaptations of '80s flicks like Road House and Fatal Attraction. He's also the impresario behind the annual haunted house "Nightmare," so perhaps these dark materials had a particular appeal for him. Stitching's subject matter really ought to shock. Yet Abby (Meital Dohan) and Stu (Gian-Murray Gianino) never emerge as real characters, making it difficult to care much for their plight—or for her eventual mutilation. Handsome Gianino often has to strain for effect, while Dohan—an attractive woman wearing far too much makeup—frequently appears to be acting in a play all her own. Really, there's only one thing to say about this needle-and-thread piece that tries and fails to disturb audience sensibilities: Darn!
Recent Articles
More by Alexis Soloski
Halloween Lives on in Americana Kamikaze and The New Electric Ballroom
Japanese ghosts go high-tech, Irish traumas echo darkly
Willem Dafoe Goes to the Birds With Richard Foreman in Idiot Savant
The noted actor returns to the downtown stage in what might—might—be the director's last play
Class Action Listings
County of Kings Is Tart and Sweet
Annie Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation
Finding the drama in drama class
Site Search «
Most Popular
-
The Strangest Landlord-Tenant Relationship In Town? Stacked up in cubicles for decades, immigrants living in a Bowery tenement may have a very unusual situation.
-
Spike Jonze Can't Quite Get Spirit of Where The Wild Things Are On Screen Max and the gang's all here. Let the mild rumpus start!
- A Bloomberg Score Card: The Mayor's Hits and Misses
- We've Bailed out the Banks. When Do We Go After the Crooks Behind our Financial Collapse?
- On Michael Jackson's Mercifully Goofy, Cheerful This Is It
| buy, sell, trade 10,273 | musician 3,583 |
| rentals 12,791 | jobs 2,037 |
| adult entertainment 34,867 | |
| classifieds | backpage.com | Post ads for free! | |
|---|---|