One of the three characters is a Mark McGwire figure: a big dude with McGwire's Cardinals-era facial hair. A second is a Latin ballplayer named Raul who, at the end of the play, is revealed to have written a tell-all book. Hmmm, I wonder who that could be. The third is just some young middle infielder type. I'm going to say it's Walt Weiss, not because there's any evidence that it really is him, but because that would make this play far more interesting for me.“Back Back Back,” a new play by Itamar Moses about baseball’s steroids scandal, could actually use a little juicing itself. Mr. Moses’ disappointingly drama-free drama does little more than skim the surface of the protracted controversy over the use of suspicious substances by star players in the major leagues.
The play, which opened on Tuesday night at City Center as part of Manhattan Theater Club’s decidedly shaky fall season (previous entries: “To Be or Not to Be” and John Patrick Shanley’s “Romantic Poetry”), has just three characters, all ballplayers glimpsed at various junctures in their careers. This instant replay of recent sports history, directed by Daniel Aukin, is staged in nine scenes, mimicking the innings of a ballgame.
It gets a pretty bad review from the Times here. Though I haven't seen it, I can't see how such a beast could possibly be any good. I mean really, do you think McGwire and Canseco ever had a single coherent, quasi-intellectual conversation about the implications of steroids? About anything?
3 comments:
I know people who saw it, and really liked it. I think the wife and I are going to see it soon, I hope it doesn't suck....
I wonder if the intermission occurs midway through the fifth act and has folks questioning the logic of why it occured then and whether the director is in cahoots with the concession operations that will benefit from the curiously timed stoppage?
How about Brian Roberts? Was Weiss ever accused of juicing?
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