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Monday, July 31, 2006

And Now for Some Theater that Does Not Suck

Posted by on July 31 at 11:08 AM

Brendan Kiley has already sung its praises, so this is redundant, but whatever: Lauren Weedman’s new show Bust is excellent. If you care about theater, if you want to stop thinking about whatever it is you’re thinking about, if you have nothing to do on Wednesday or Thursday or Friday or Saturday night, if you like funny, you should see it. Weedman is a fantastic actress—it’s eerie to watch her go from one character to another—and (more important to me) a fantastic writer. If Zadie Smith spent time in a women’s jail in L.A. and wrote about the people she encountered—the career guards, the cops, the slut behind the front desk, the visitors, the inmates, the have-a-hug Christians in the chaplain’s office—you’d have something like the characters in Bust. (Sarah Rudinoff did something similar in The Last State, conjuring a bunch of characters at odds with one another and playing them all.) There’s also a great running subplot about Weedman writing a story about rape for Glamour, a lucrative and untimately horrifying experience. (Her editor goes from being an encouraging sycophant to a self-aggrandizing nightmare; the way the story goes from being Weedman’s to being what Glamour readers ostensibly want is all too accurate.) Allison Narver’s direction is sharp and the sound design by Mark Nichols gives the unchanging set tons of dimension. The show plays at Empty Space Theatre—in its new home on 12th Avenue—through Saturday. Get yer tickets here.


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I agree. Lauren Weedman is freaking fabulous!

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