Written by Tina Howe
Directed by Michael Wilson
Synopsis: Primary Stages concludes the 2008-2009 season with the world premiere of the new comedy Chasing Manet by Tina Howe, in which a rebellious painter from a distinguished family in Boston and an ebullient Jewish woman with a huge adoring family form an unlikely bond. Inside the confining walls of Mount Airy Nursing Home, the two plot an escape to Paris aboard the QE2. But can they possibly pull it off amidst the chaos of their surroundings? The tension and comedy grow as they struggle to take wing for the last time.
NEW YORK TIMES:
"Like many of Ms. Howe’s plays, “Chasing Manet” celebrates human (and particularly female) eccentricity and willfulness, even in the shadow of death. But the quirks assigned to the characters here all feel preowned (as the car vendors say), as does the gimmick-driven plot."
Read the whole review HERE.
NEW YORK POST:
"'ONE Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" meets "The Golden Girls" in "Chasing Manet," about two old women plotting their escape from a nursing home. Tina Howe's strained dark comedy has its moving moments, but they're often sacrificed in favor of cheap laughs."
Read the whole review HERE.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS:
"The notion of getting old and being discarded is fertile ground for drama or comedy, but Howe's contrived story never fully blooms in either direction. The play feels like a first draft, not a honed work by the accomplished author of "Coastal Disturbances" and "Painting Churches.""
Read the whole review HERE.
THEATERMANIA:
"It's only a clichéd spirited old lady role, but Jane Alexander makes as much of it as could be hoped for in Tina Howe's Chasing Manet, currently at Primary Stages. In fact, her performance is the main point of interest in the otherwise under-developed, sitcom-thin play."
Read the whole review HERE.
VARIETY:
"Tina Howe's "Chasing Manet" almost makes you envy its mentally ill characters the good fortune of not knowing where they are. Everyone else in the theater is aware they're watching a bad example of the nursing home drama -- a genre that, by definition, does not have much life left in it. With the exception of one interesting monologue, beautifully delivered by David Margulies, the play falls flat, cut off at the knees by embarrassingly sketchy characterizations and Michael Wilson's tone-deaf direction."
Read the whole review HERE.
BACKSTAGE:
"Only Tina Howe, the author of such eccentric and lyrical works as Painting Churches and Coastal Disturbances, could take what is essentially an episode of Golden Girls and turn it into a tenderly sad and riotously funny meditation on age, family, and freedom of expression."
Read the whole review HERE.
