Closer (Methuen Modern Plays) (Modern Classics)

Product Information

A quartet of strangers in a sexual square dance in which partners are constantly swapped, caught between desire and betrayal.

The four main characters of this play are probably not people you'd want to have as companions. They're all selfish, deceitful, conniving, and use sex to both enrich and destroy their lives. W ho should read it? I will say right now..this is a cynical, jaded, utterly dark look at human behavior. It is not for the faint of heart. It shows relationships at their utter worst. In a review from Allmovie, Perry Seibert praised the acting, the direction and the screenwriting, stating that Clive Owen "finds every dimension in his alpha-male character", Julia Roberts "shows not an ounce of movie-star self-consciousness", Natalie Portman "understands [her character] inside and out" and affirming that "[w]ith his superior timing, Nichols allows each of these actors to hit every funny, cruel, and intimate moment in the script". The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw gave Closer a one-star review and stated that Clive Owen was the only actor that portrayed "real emotions" in the film, saying that the other three lead actors could have just been "advertising perfume". [13] Box office [ edit ]

Gallery and video

Travers, Peter (December 3, 2004). "Closer". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on March 29, 2013 . Retrieved October 21, 2022. Directed by Ivan Krejčí. The play had its premiere on 21 March 2004 in the Silesian Theatre in Opava, Czech Republic.

One month after this Anna is with Dan. She's just gotten the divorce papers signed, but tells him Larry demanded sex in exchange for signing the papers for her. Dan becomes jealous, and wants to know why Anna didn't lie to him. This turns into a brutal conversation which Anna reveals to him that she actually did have sex with Larry to get the papers signed. Turan, Kenneth (December 3, 2004). "Love, sadistically". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved October 7, 2015. When I saw this in the movie theater, many years ago, half the audience got up and walked out. Many have found, and will find, it extremely offensive.The band Panic! at the Disco split a line from the play into two song titles on their 2005 album A Fever You Can't Sweat Out: "Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off" and "But It's Better If You Do". This is at heart a partner-swapping affair with allusions to classical opera, but can be less described as a dance and more a tag-team fight. Past that, the text is heavy with reflections on modern life and the alienating effects these approaches to love are prone to producing. Six months later, Dan and Larry meet in an adult internet chat room where Dan impersonates Anna and arranges for Larry to supposedly meet her the next day. When she actually turns up misunderstandings abound but she and Larry begin a relationship which leads to marriage. 18 months later later both Larry and Dan split up with their respective partners (Anna and Alice) and a few months after that, Larry meets Alice in a strip club - beginning a brief liaison with her. Nearly a year later after Alice's death, they find out that her name and persona was assumed and nearly everything she has told them about herself is a lie. Alice then asks Anna if she can have her portrait taken as well. She agrees, so Alice asks Dan to leave them alone during the photoshoot. While being photographed, she reveals to Anna that she overheard them, and she is photographed while crying. Alice does not tell Dan what she heard and their relationship continues, but he spends a year brooding over Anna.

My son had to write a school paper on this play and he wanted me to read it, so I could better help proof his work. He also had to read Antigone. He liked that one better. It is paradoxical to bring distance to a play about intimacy and it is remarkable that it does not bleed the power out of the dialogue, though it does place us at some emotional remove. Intimacy builds, especially in Troughton’s outstanding performance, and also comes from Richard Howell’s sharp, crisp lighting. Marber tells his story in short, staccato scenes in which the unsaid talks as loudly as the said. The dialogue is almost entirely stichomythic, the occasional speech still not much longer than a few lines. There are frequent pauses, but not of the Pinteresque variety—more like skipped heartbeats... Closer does not merely hold your attention; it burrows into you."

Cast

One way to restore its potency might lie in the x-ray excavation of text preferred by Jamie Lloyd’s current West End Seagull, where we get so inside the characters’ thoughts that the feeling is almost voyeuristic. Instead, Lizzimore has encouraged a declamatory, Brechtian aesthetic, as if the play were happening to some degree in inverted commas rather than seeming ripped from the gut. There is a fascinating theme about identity which rumbles through the play. Dan steals Alice’s identity – her story for the book he writes. Then in a central scene where Larry and Dan exchange messages via computer, Dan pretends to be Anna to flirt with Larry. And then finally we learn that Alice was a name that she stole from one of the memorials in Postman’s Park – a young woman that died having saved children from a fire. It is only at the end that we discover she is called Jane, and she was telling Larry her true name just before the scene above in the strip club. The only time she was truthful and he didn’t believe her. In 2019, the Israeli Cameri Theater debuted a production of the play, translated and directed by Miri Lazar. Each and every Closer has their own personality and character arc. You’ll face the same foes and overcome the same threats, but through the lens of each character’s unique combat style and flair.

April 2009: 12 years on I find I have my opportunity as the 1990s segment of the Bench Theatre 40th Anniversary season. So what is it that appealed? Simply - it's a play that works on so many different levels. I will say the film holds more power then the play version. Although I was surprised that certain things in the play differed from the film quite alot. Ebert, Roger (December 2, 2004). "Gender wars on a whole new level". Chicago Sun-Times . Retrieved October 7, 2015. A month after this, Anna is late meeting Dan for dinner. She is coming from asking Larry to sign the divorce papers. Dan finds out that Larry had demanded Anna have sex with him before he would sign the papers. Dan becomes upset and jealous, asking Anna why she didn’t lie to him. They have a candid, brutally truthful conversation. Anna reveals that she did have sex with Larry and he did sign the papers. The play won the 1997 Evening Standard Best Comedy Award and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. [12] AwardsCloser has been described as a work that "gets under its audience's skin, and ... not for the emotionally squeamish", a work in which "Marber is alert to the cruel inequalities of love, as the characters change partners in what sometimes comes over like a modern reworking of Coward's Private Lives." [4] Language [ edit ] Six months later, Dan and Larry meet in an adult chat room. Dan impersonates Anna and has Internet sex with Larry. He tries to play a practical joke on Larry by arranging for Larry to meet him (Dan pretending to be Anna in the chat room) in the London Aquarium the next day. When Larry arrives, stunned to see Anna (who Dan didn't know would be there), he acts believing that she is the same person from the previous night's internet chat and makes a fool of himself. Anna catches on and says that Dan was probably playing a practical joke on him. She reveals that it is her birthday and snaps a photo of Larry.