Peter Sellars has been heading up a production of Othello that’s playing at NYU’s Skirball Auditorium. He was fortunate enough to land Academy Award-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman for the lead, but that’s where his luck ended.
Sellars’ production is so bad that a mass exodus occurs during the intermission of every show. According to Will Pulos, a student and digital journalist at NYU, “I basically haven’t seen a theatrical exodus that large since sitting through a community theater production of ‘Clue: The Musical’ in northern Michigan.” I’ve only seen a bunch of people file out of a show one time — during the movie From Justin to Kelly and no, I don’t want to discuss why I was there.
One night, in response to all the empty seats, Sellars came on stage and announced, “Move up. Please move up. The closer you are, the better.”
Awwww :-(
I just find that to be soo sad.
the play can’t be any worse than his eyebrows!
Sooo I’m really excited because I feel famous now! EB mentioned something I went to! I go to NYU and had to go see this thing. I definitely left at intermission. PSH is awful and yell-y in it and SPOILER: Peter Sellars combined the characters of Bianca and Montano and at the part where Montano and Cassio get into a fistfight in the original, instead Cassio RAPES Bianca/Montano. It is horrible to watch. Really, really bad.
Toootally thought that was Philip Seymour Hoffman.
that is. He’s in the play.
And Clue: the Musical?? Um I want to go to there.
Wow, that was a confusing couple of minutes. First I thought that Peter Sellers had come back from the dead, and instead of yelling “DIE ZOMBIE DIE,” someone put him in charge of a play (I totally would have too). Then I thought that you were dissin’ on Zombie Peter Sellers, and that’s just not acceptable. Then I turned to Google and order was restored in the universe.
Haha, That was exactly the same thought process i went through.
Why are Philip Seymour Hoffman’s eyebrows dyed orange?
Not looking good with those brows but he is a very talented actor.
We had a large conversation about this in my acting industry class. The show is actually being done by The LAByrinth Theatre Company, which Phil Hoffman runs, so he would naturally be in it, but the concept is one that sort of ran away with itself. It’s frustrating to see the actors so bored with what they’re doing, but at the same time it’s like… if you’re that talented and have done that much theatre and won that many awards, if a show is not at all turning out to be what you signed on for, sometimes it’s impossible to actually appear like you give a shit. That’s basically this show’s problem. All of the actors are so aware that the production is brutally bad that they give off an air of complete boredom. Not to mention that it’s Othello and it’s 4 hours long. Only Hamlet is supposed to be that long, if it isn’t cut. I don’t know what they did because I’ve refused to see it, but according to everyone in the industry it’s pretty rough.