Philip Seymour Hoffman. Oh. No. Saw him first preview night at the Public Theater in New York in Jack Goes Boating which he did with his best friends. His understated genius was a miracle to behold. The scene where he is learning to swim so he can take his girl boating in Central Park was breathtaking. Lights only on him with stage and all of us in complete darkness. Hoffmann alone in only swim trunks no shirt socks shoes down on floor in front of stage with single thin blue neon line beamed horizontally across wall behind him indicating his position in a pool where he is learning to swim. We he are surrounded by darkness except for that blue line, He turns Alfred Hitchcock sideways and we start giggling at the mere sight of his rotund stomach juxtaposed with the water line. He then proceeds to appear to be learning to swim with arms flapping head tilting somehow making us believe he is doing the crawl turning around for the backstroke maybe trying butterfly in a YMCA pool. Completely had us with stomach rotating angling heaving over around while this brilliant man with fixed look of concentration is actually standing on his bare feet down front at the bottom of the packed theater rows of seats convincingly comic loading swimming in front of a blue line in semi darkness. He had us. Incredulous booming laughter. Aisles are spilling with hands holding aching sides.The entire play was Hoffmans. Yet his generosity with the other actors also moved the action and our hearts. At dinner after my son and I could not stop enthusing about every little nuance we had been lucky enough to witness that night. This was the experience of Titian at the Prado, a first reading of Roth, the natural roll and build of Bill Evans on the piano, with a lot of messy bemused Guston brushstrokes thrown in. This was art that is so rare it hurts. And todays news is a tornado of hurt. Devastation. May carefree floating and blue waters be where he now rows. And I hope he is laughing.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 21:22:31 +0000
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