B

 

Hoo-rah!

  • Well-written script by Bruce Norris– compelling story that never felt too spoon-fed, and all very real characters who reminded Liz and I of actual people in our lives.
  • Appreciated the balance of the slightly absurd theatrical elements with grounded, true-to-life depictions.
  • The show moves swiftly with excellent pacing– all scene and set changes happened while the action continued, and characters would move from one scene to the next without missing a beat. This was used to great comedic effect in a scene where the wife (fabulously played by Laurie Metcalf) tells her lawyer there’s no way they’re going to become the kind of people who talk to a therapist, and literally a second later they’re sitting down talking to a therapist. I believe Bruce Norris/Anna Shapiro (the director) have mastered the theatrical smash-cut.
  • ‘Theater in the round’ style of the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre felt intimate, and the blocking was such that you never had more than one character facing away from you.
  • Ian Malcolm– the later years! Jeff Goldblum was an excellent choice for a philandering, unfaithful, selfish prick who could still entertain and hold your interest.
  • Loved the Cambodian daughter never speaking to her family, but continually giving a school presentation throughout the show that progressed into further and further humiliation for various male species of animal.

Blech…

  • There’s definitely a better title for this show than ‘Domesticated.’ Maybe they were playing off the whole domesticated animal thing in addition to the family dynamic, but when I hear a show is called ‘Domesticated’, I imagine a somewhat inane, low-stakes family drama. This wanted to be called something grander, perhaps ‘The Descent of Man’ or ‘Humiliated Male Species 101.’
  • As much as I like the idea of it, I don’t really buy that Bill (Jeff Goldblum) would stay quiet through the almost the entire first act of the show. He clearly loves the sound of his own voice, and as we learned later, wasn’t really ashamed of his actions, so the notion that he would allow a constant barrage of verbal abuse without speaking up rang untrue.
  • While the ensemble casting was certainly efficient (7 performers covered about 20 characters), it definitely caused confusion. A couple of the more bothersome double-takes: the actress who played the wife’s lawyer also played her best friend, and the actress who played the defending lawyer of an injured prostitute and her mother also played an Oprah-esque talk-show host who interviewed them. Costumes/hair-styles/demeanor– not sure what or how, but more certainly could have been done to distinguish some of these parts.
  • One of the actresses took me out of the moment a number of times: she spoke far louder than the other performers, and never really disappeared into any of the five roles she was playing.
  • Jeff Goldblum has a strange physicality when he plays heightened emotions. He bangs on things over-dramatically, makes big gestures, and swings his whole body– it struck me as unnatural, but maybe I just haven’t seen enough tall, lanky people get angry.

 

Fun Facts:

Jeff Golblum plays a guy who can’t stand to be monogamous with his wife, and keeps going after younger people. In real life, Jeff Goldblum was married and divorced twice, then has dated on and off with numerous people for the past 23 years. His current girlfriend is half his age.

 

Laurie Metcalf plays Jeff Goldblum’s wife and the mother of their two children. She is sickened by her husband’s actions and can’t stand the sight of him anymore. In real life, she recently filed for divorce after a nearly 20 year marriage, also with two children.