Apr 15, 2008
Cute or Annoying?
Just saw Sarah Ruhl's latest, Dead Man Cell Phone, at Steppenwolf. I loved the Edward Hopper-inspired staging (one of many suggestions that Ruhl makes in her script). The premise isn't that earth-shattering—a woman answers a stranger's cell phone and pieces together his life post-mortem—but Ruhl injects enough of her brand of whimsy and magical realism that you're quickly steered beyond the predictable. OK, so some weird and pretty unlikely things happen (a delish-looking make-out session in a stationery store; a monologue from the grave), but all in all, I found it a worthy Friday night activity.
I'm still wondering about one thing: Do most people find Polly Noonan cute or annoying? For the uninitiated, Noonan is a New York-based actress who stars in many of Ruhl's shows—and whose IMDB profile calls her "Girl on the Bus with the Gummi Bears" in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
I think she's great in the part, but when I said that around the office, a few of my co-workers looked at me in disbelief. (Ever wonder what we do around here at Chicago magazine? The answer: talk about plays; work; debate the merits of Brasserie Ruhlman versus Old Town Brasserie; work; make fun of lame PR mailings, which yesterday included a tiny wooden kayak that came with no supporting material, hence no explanation for its existence.)
In an informal poll of four editors, all of whom see a lot of plays, all four voted annoying. I still say cute. And I'm not usually a fan of cute things. The kayak, for example. It's about to go in the trash.
Posted at 06:23 PM in Coda | Permalink
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Coda is a blog by arts and culture editor Cassie Walker, who, love it or hate it, always has an opinion. During the course of her weekly culture hunting, she reviews high art and pop culture events so you'll know what you need to check out and what you can miss.
Comments to this blog are moderated. We review them in an effort to remove foul language, commercial messages, and irrelevancies.
Reader Comments:
Just saw Polly Noonan in Dead Man's Cell Phone. Have the four
annoyed editors seen her strong performance
in this difficult Ruhl role?? Noonan is stuck with the dang
gummi bear thing from her Ferris Bueller past which irritates
her and many of her fans, including her parents!! But are your
Brasserie discussing colleagues anti-Noonan or anti-Jean, the
part she plays....? Nominated for Helen Hayes award in DC for
her work in this role, Noonan does not annoy those serious
theater goers!
I plan to see Polly Noonan in Dead Man's Cell phone. I am sure her character is complex and maybe a bit knotty, as that is how Ruhl seems to craft 'em. If she comes across as a little nettlesome, I am pretty sure it's a (Pulitzer finalist and MacArthur winning) playwright's intentional audience provoking. I want to scream cute but Polly's too good to be boiled down to an office-time parlour game. Look closely, that kayak might be much more than you think.
what have got against kayaks? and what have these "editors" got against Noonan. I remember seeing her years ago in a New Crime show and she was riveting and fantastic.
do i not perhaps smell a whiff of envy wafting up from my keyboard?
Cute or annoying? Come on.
Mmm, I'm curious to know what your esteemed editors have seen Miss Noonan in in Chicago, as I can recall her in only one recent production here which was at the Goodman of Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play. I guess they haven't seen Dead Man's Cell Phone yet. Do I smell a rat? Unless of course they have seen her brilliant performances in Washington D.C., New York and L.A. She's been nominated for the Helen Haye's best actress award two years in a row, maybe we should embrace Chicago's own.
Polly? Cute.
Ruhl? Annoying.
Noonan worked here doing John Cusack's New Criminal shows before she moved out-of-town, but any of the actors who did those shows can't really be judged based on those shows alone, thanks to the conventions of New Crime shows of the painted faces, the arch line readings that were always delivered straight at the audience and the herky-jerky movements accompanied by that damn bass drum. After one act of constant "BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!," I felt like going over, taking the drumsticks from the drummer and beating the crap out of him with those drumsticks.
And enough with the "Miss Noonan" crap. George Abbott and George Sanders died a long time ago and this isn't frakin' Sardi's.
Polly Noonan is a brilliant actor who is also pretty cute. Jean is a complicated character and she nails the role.
"Cute" is an annoying word; Polly Noonan is most certainly not an annoying actor.
I walked out of the play. I couldn't handle her baby voice and spasmatic physicality. I'm sure it was a stylistic decision on her part, I'm sure she's a lovely person, but the performance didn't work for me. I also thought the script was pretty flimsy compared to Ruhl's amazing play "The Clean House."