Showing posts with label A Few Good Men. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Few Good Men. Show all posts

Saturday, January 30, 2010

"A Few Good Men" Headed Back to the Great White Way


I was ecstatic to hear this week that "A Few Good Men" by the incomparable Aaron Sorkin is gearing up for a Broadway revival. One great thing this revival is doing is having Sorkin make some rewrites to the script. His movie script is much stronger in several scenes that and I think this is clearly a good call -- especially with the whole flight plan sequence. With the changes, I hope that they don't modernize the situations to reflect the current climate. Just because Gitmo is a setting in the show doesn't mean the show needs to deal with Iraq/Afghanistan inmates, etc. We shall see.

The other talk is about the casting of Lt. Kaffee -- the part originated by Tom Hulce, made iconic by Tom Cruise on film, and of course immortalized (more like moderately portrayed ) by yours truly in March 2009.
According to the NYTimes an executive "mentioned off hand that James Franco was the sort of actor who might be ideal in the role — or perhaps Justin Timberlake — but said that those names were merely examples of the sort of star name and caliber of the talent that were being sought, and emphasized that it should not be assumed with either actor would be cast in the part."

I like the Franco call -- he's always done good work and would love to see him on stage, but c'mon -- JT?!??! He's funny on SNL but not a pick for Kaffee. Outside of Franco, how about Chris Pine of "Star Trek" fame? His look could have him play either Kaffee or Ross (Kevin Bacon role). Plus, he has some recent stage credits -- in the summer of 2009 he appeared in the Los Angeles production of the Beau Willimon play "Farragut North."

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Windsurfer? That's a compliment, right???


 I was very happy to be reviewed for the first time in my professional career in the Phila Inq yesterday and even happier that the production was overall positively received.  Mr. Shapiro mentioned how I wasn't that funny at first -- he must have heard from all my friends that I'm the "King of Awful Puns."  Still it was nice to hear from an outside voice that after the first 20 minutes, I grab "the play by its themes and ride it like a windsurfer."  Unfortunately, being the political dork that I am, I can't get the image out of my head of good ole John Kerry windsurfing in his Dukakis/Snoopy/Tank moment: ) 

"You're Like John Kerry with his windsurfing.  I warned him too."