{"id":8353,"date":"2020-01-22T07:10:54","date_gmt":"2020-01-22T12:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8353"},"modified":"2020-10-13T12:58:43","modified_gmt":"2020-10-13T16:58:43","slug":"goodnight-nobody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8353","title":{"rendered":"Goodnight Nobody"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

McCarter\nTheatre Center<\/a>, Princeton, N.J., presents a stunning new play by Rachel\nBonds, directed by Tyne Rafaeli, that opened January 18 and runs through\nFebruary 9. The play\u2019s five characters have fifteen relationships among them, relationships\nwith the power to sneak up on you and knock you out of your seat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The play takes place in a \u201clovingly\nrestored\u201d upstate New York farmhouse, surrounded by trees\u2014a nice metaphor for\nthe quest for comfort in a wilderness of emotion. Its first scene reveals the inauspicious\nlove affair between a young painter, Nan (Saamer Usmani), and a successful\nolder sculptor, Mara (Dana Delany) who owns the farmhouse. He\u2019s made her\nbreakfast, and the scent of bacon wafts over the audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t know whether this secret relationship\nwill or can survive, when the second scene begins at some later point. Mara\u2019s\nson Reggie (Nate Miller) has brought his two closest friends to the farmhouse for\na getaway weekend. They are K (Ariel Woodiwiss) and, again, Nan. Nan is having\nsome artistic success; Reggie is a comedian just coming off of a brutal\nnational tour; and K needs a break from the demands of her infant son and\nrecently widowed mother. They have a pretty good time of it. Nan is a fantastic\ncook, there\u2019s plenty of booze and beer and a freezing lake to swim in, though\nNan is the only one to take the plunge (a recurring tendency). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unexpectedly, Mara appears with the\ncurrent man in her life, the age-appropriate Bo (Ken Marks). Everyone\u2014Mara and\nNan, especially\u2014puts on a game face, but the undercurrents the newcomers set in\nmotion are practically visible. When the group decamps outdoors to enjoy an\nevening bonfire, several relationships go up in smoke. To enable this scene, Kimie\nNishikawa has created a spectacular\nset that opens like a birthday present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bonds\nwrites realistic, witty, endearing dialog. The laughs\u2014and there are plenty of\nthem\u2014are a pleasing surface, though pain and disappointment gradually float\ninto view. Though you may feel you know these characters well, Bonds has the\npower to surprise you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncombination of Bonds\u2019s writing, Rafaeli\u2019s inspired direction, and the excellent\nperformances of the entire company make this multi-layered, complex drama a\ncompelling experience. Its title comes from the children\u2019s classic, Goodnight\nMoon<\/em>, and as K riffs on the story\u2019s tedium, wonders aloud about its sorrowful\nline, \u201cGoodnight nobody,\u201d the line that transports a simple story from the realm\nof the predictable into the unknown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCarter Theatre is easily reached\nfrom New York by car or train (New Jersey Transit to the Princeton Junction\nstation, then the shuttle into Princeton. The shuttle ends a short walk from\nthe theater and the university\u2019s arts district, as well as two innovative\nrestaurants in the buildings of the old train station.\n\nFor tickets, call the box office at 609-258-2787\nor visit the ticket\noffice online<\/a>.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

McCarter Theatre Center, Princeton, N.J., presents a stunning new play by Rachel Bonds, directed by Tyne Rafaeli, that opened January 18 and runs through February 9. The play\u2019s five characters have fifteen relationships among them, relationships with the power to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Goodnight Nobody - a witty new play in which simple relationships among friends turn out to have much more going on. I loved it!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[272,366,104,147],"tags":[1693,329],"class_list":["post-8353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedy","category-drama","category-the-morgue","category-theater","tag-goodnight-nobody","tag-mccarter-theatre"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/thumbnail_Nate-Miller-Dana-Delany-and-Ariel-Woodiwiss-in-Goodnight-Nobody.-Photo...-2.jpg?fit=1273%2C612&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2aJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8355,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8353\/revisions\/8355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}