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Maybe it’s been years since you kicked back and smoked a bowl while jamming to Bob Marley. Or maybe it was yesterday. Either way, you’re not likely to forget the temporary reprieve it offers between the loud thumbing of everyday neurosis, the obsessive fixations on life’s minutia, and relationships which come together only to break apart and on and on. Jack Goes Boating is the artistic equivalent of these cloudy moments when nothing and everything matters.
The play revolves around the complicated relationships of two
working-class couples in their 30s who live in New York. “All the
characters have their eccentricities–fear of relationships, distrust of
others (and themselves), obsessions with various aspects of their
lives–and the universal need to connect with another person, to share
intimacy. All the dysfunction that makes life what it is,” says director
Steven Chambers. “Throw in jobs at a limo service and a funeral home,
illicit drugs, Jah Rastafari, and learning how to cook and to swim, and
you’ve got the elements of [this play.]”
The New Theatre production overlaps with the motion picture release of
the movie version–directed by and starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman– but
the timing is a coincidence. After a critically-acclaimed run in New
York City, the theatre was aiming for a Southeastern premiere for the
2009-2010 season but production was delayed. It is only recently, as
rehearsals have been wrapping up, that the cast and director learned of
the film release.
But they aren’t miffed by this detail. “Especially for those of us who
are students of the arts, I think it will be interesting to compare and
contrast the two works,” says Chambers. “The excitement of being at a
live theatrical event is being a part of an experience that happens only
once exactly the way this audience, on this night, at this performance,
sees it. You will see someone you know–if not in the audience, then on
the stage.”
Jack Goes Boating runs October 8th through October 24th at New Theatre
(4120 Laguna St., Coral Gables). Performances take place Thursdays
through Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 1 p.m. with an additional
5:30 p.m. performance on the 17th and 24th. Thursday and Sunday
performances cost $35 and all others cost $40. $15 student rush tickets
are available. Call 305-443-5909 or visit new-theatre.org.
