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Theater Review: “The Killer”
June 8, 2014
This person was not a friend, but someone I knew through business. His death was sad and seemed pointless and it was not comprehensible to me.
Last night I saw the revival of Ionesco’s “The Killer” and felt the same way.
Theater of the Absurd plays must be read and discussed, and written about, but staged 50-60 years after they were written, when their powers to shock have all but abated? Do we need to sit in the dark for hours and watch and listen to Ionesco (and Genet, whose “The Maids” will be on stage again soon in New York) go on about the meaninglessness of life, moral complacency, the dangers of conformity, the omnipresence of death, all with the requisite slap stick humor? Must it be a three hour and fifteen minute production? (None of this applies to Beckett, who is a giant striding amongst pygmies. I hope that after this world ends and the cockroaches take over, they will find a way to stage Beckett.)
I suppose the denizens of New York’s rent regulated, book lined apartments need a reason to go out when there is no wine and cheese to be had at a local art gallery opening: perhaps there is a need to chortle about how something is both “Kafkaesque” and “Chaplinesque.”
I went to see Michael Shannon, a fine actor whom I would go to see in anything and at least, for said three hours and fifteen minutes, it was a pleasure to watch him act.
I hope the roaches can find a role for him in a Beckett production one day.
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