My overall impression
So coming in, there isn’t much to see as far as a set… could have been a good thing or a bad thing, I mean part of going to a play is the images and set, right? Well, this one definitely set the mood correctly.
We all have a degree of angst and neurosis, much of the time we (at least I do) push it to the back of my mind. Not tonight, Down in Front made me Sit Up Straight and chuckle not just at the actors, but myself.
I love when an actor can express himself with his whole body, his pleadings not just audio, but visual, drawing me into his dilemma, making me feel his angst, making me short of breath.
That point when Paul is convinced that Sandy is going to tell him that it’s over, that now isn’t the time to discuss it, I felt that overwhelming need to know right then and there what she had to say. I wanted to yell out ‘Tell him!’ It drew me back to my own personal experience: the dread, that fear that it’s coming, the end of a relationship, that moment I began to sweat. When I saw the sweat marks under his arms I thought ‘shit, I remember that panic’.
And then that moment when he bears it all and tells Sandy how he really feels, she is caught off guard…. magic
And there I sat, a 50 year old man with moist eyes.