From the lamest title to the Lamest show I have possibly ever seen, I'm channeling my inner Mrs. Lovett, but am singing about plays and not pies. “The Viewing Room” is a play that was done a while back at Steppenwolf in Chicago and is about a couple in the near-future who volunteer to guard a prisoner in their home. I myself felt like a prisoner in the theatre and just wonder how in the world this thing every got produced!
We got free tickets through Tricycle and well let’s just say that that was the Best thing about it, that it was Free. Well, that and seeing Leonard Roberts, of “Buffy” and “Heroes” fame live and in the flesh. He was very easy on the eyes and actually not so bad in the role of the prisoner.
But the Rest of it?! Ok, first of all, the actor & actress playing the couple had the Worst American Accents heard on either side of the pond! On top of that, the actor just got more and more 'camp' as the play went on. The writing, particularly in the 2nd act, was just so hackneyed and cliched that the friends I went with kept bursting into unintended laughter. As far as the story, there wasn't a really huge twist. The first act ended with the couple finding out that they'd been sent the wrong prisoner. Instead of guarding a drug dealer they'd been sent a first-degree murderer who they had to then 'terminate,' so the 2nd act I guess was meant to be a treatise on the death penalty but was let down by, well, just about everything in the production, including a bizarre scene where the woman does yoga and then they all dance around to jazz music. WTF? Perhaps the worst thing I've seen in London, though the 2nd act became one of those it was soo bad it was slightly entertaining.
Follow my adventures in the City of London and at City University.
