Tag: Amy Adams

Shiela Callahan’s “Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play” closing tonight at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre in the West Village and the 2008 film “Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day” starring Frances McDormand and Amy Adams don’t have a damn thing in common except that I saw them both within the same 24-hour period.

S0 these two pieces have been on my mind for the last so many hours…and…

I am so proud of Sheila’s play.  Watching it,  knowing her work.  She’s a friend from an Annex Hothouse in Seattle at the turn of the century…   It’s–her style, people, stuff (and she has a lot of stuff)…pushing buttons.  The last 20 minutes, when the (**spoiler alert!!–but it’s closing this weekend so if you’re not there now you’re not going to see it–too bad for you it’s really good) screenwriter was taking imaginary questions–all of a sudden it was powerful.  (Like Whoopie Goldberg’s monologue about the Valley Girl who gets a coat hanger abortion, all light and fun and stereotypes and then crack, crunch, the turn of the screw-key-handcuffs..Oh Man HARSH!)

 All of a sudden Sheila’s play came together.  Rape/Abortion/Anorexia/Sisters/Jane Fonda/Casual Sex/Marriage/Social Situations/Formal Dresses/Guns-and-sex movies and video games/Alcohol/Abu Ghraib/Burkas/Doctor patient relationships/Mothers…What the H…!  And that’s why she got so many write ups this time and John Lahr  of the The New Yorker called her out as a playwright to watch.

And

In “Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day”…The young people…they don’t remember the last war…no they don’t…they don’t know…Love is all there is…

In my mind these two pieces are about women in the world…

It’s like this…and that…

No really!  It is!