Talley's Folly

[firstfrost]

After seeing the Lyric's Talley's Folly (we lost chenoameg!) I find that most of what I'm thinking about is differences/similarites to the dpolicar/chanaleh version. All the things I think about the play are still true - I still find Matt more sympathetic than Sally, the writing good, and so on. I found the Lyric Matt very like Dave's Matt, but the Lyric Sally much more different (both harder and more frightened, which meant I could maybe understand her a little more (though I guess having seen it once before helps with that), but like her a little less.). I wonder if this is because Matt's character (for me) is so tied up in the accents and voices?

The only thing that I really didn't like was the music during the Sally-confesses confrontration. My first instinctive reaction was "oh for God's sake, is that someone's cell phone?" Then I realized it was music from the bandstand (there's a line about it), but even so, it made my entire emotional reaction to that scene one of annoyance at the noisemusic as opposed to a reaction to anything going on on stage.

Comments

[dpolicar]

Sally is interesting that way. She's profoundly broken, but high-functioning. It's only when she's pushed to the end of her coping mechanisms that she starts to do completely insane things. It's a tough role.

[desireearmfeldt]

Somehow in the Lyric's performence, when she revealed her secret, I got a very strong flash of "yes, this sounds like a more trivial thing that what you were imagining, Matt, but in context it really *was* that bad," which had the interesting effect of making me think "ah, and therefore the future really *can* be as easy as Matt is suggesting, because there really is the opportunity to go be in some other context."

Er, I'm saying this badly, but... I bought into the idea that all the things smart-Sally clearly knows (yes, I could just leave home and go get an apartment with Rachel and Ida and associate with people more like me than my family) have finally been connected in to hurt-Sally's awareness. That by saying "well, it wasn't so bad, except it was"--in response to Matt's reaction of "They made your life miserable over *that*? I thought it was something *bad*!"--she's stepping out of the denial-box, not about her pain, but about the fact that it's over. So she can actually give up inflicting the blind spot on her otherwise useful brain.

[dpolicar]

Oo. I like that.
I never considered the possibility that Matt thought it was trivial. I sorta wish I had, actually, because I like what that does.

[desireearmfeldt]

The hurt isn't trivial, but Matt would not have treated someone as worthless because she couldn't have children, even if he didn't have the vow. (Whereas it seems he actually *might* freak out about someone having an illigitimate child.)

It's part of the set of behavior that they both agree is dumb about Sally's family--but she's wrapped up in it and it's part of her reality, where Matt the outsider is free to shake his head and look puzzled. I felt like it clicked for Sally: oh, you really *are* different from them, and so is a lot of the rest of the world; I always knew that, but now I *know* it...

[dpolicar]

Yeah. I think, when I did it, Matt got really wrapped up in Sally's view of it, and it never occurred to me that he might be outside of it. I was really focused on the snap-point where he goes from badgering her to tell him about the illegitimate child, so they can move past that, to realizing that he's been an insensitive jerk... making sure the audience gets that. Neat. Something to keep in mind if I ever do the show again.