Rating: 
Summary: Marber beats Mamet
Review: Somebody to watch, Marber is equally skilled as an author and a director, succeeding where Mamet was lukewarm on "The Old Neighborhood" in London's West End. Come see it at Steppenwolf in Spring 1999, I myself saw it once in London and twice on Broadway. Caution on the language however, not for the faint of heart.
Rating:
Summary: The Closer you look, the stranger they are
Review: Strange things are the human beings. Come to think of them. We are never happy with what we have-- we always want more, and we always have a hard time trying to fulfill our egotistical desire. This wish is what moves the characters in Patrick Marber's play 'Closer'.A group of four characters get together and falls a part. It begins when the stripper Alice meets the journalist Dan. Months later they are married, he has written a book, and he meets the photographer Anna, who's taking his pictures to the book jacket. Dan grows obsessed with Anna. In an Internet chat room, while pretends to be Anna, Dan meets and have 'sex' with the dermatologist Larry. They arrange to meet in the Zoo on the following day. Larry goes there and by coincidence the real Anna is there. They end up getting together and married. This is when these four persons relationships are about to get more complicated. It is undeniable that what moves Marber's characters is the sexual attraction, rather than love itself. People desire each other, more than love --albeit they can say they are in love. Dan seems to be the kind of man who wants to be with as much women as possible, while Larry appears to be in love, at first. But this feeling total disappears and becomes a feeling of revenge --sexual speaking. He wants to hurt both Anna and Dan. On the other hand, Alice has a blasé behavior at first, which ends up being an obsessive sexual relationship as the time goes. Moreover, Alice develops a sick patter through the years. Anna, while seems to be a strong and independent woman at first, turns out to be fragile until when she is hurt very hard, and has to be strong again. The dramatist manages to give a sad and honest look in love and desire in our times. His characters and situations are totally believable and well developed. We can go inside people's feelings and understand what moves them. Not a single scene has flaws-- everything and everyone are where they are supposed to be. A great play for our times.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting modern play
Review: This is a good read, and no doubt even better in performance. I agree with the critic that said Marber is no Pinter, but this is still an enjoyable piece, and very modern in content. Recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Good play, but for 18 and older
Review: Well I'm kind of mad right now since I typed a whole review and in the middle of it the page reloaded. Sigh.
Anyway,
This play is (according to the quotes on the back of the book) "life-imitates-MTV superficiality of modern urban existence", "devastatingly sad" and "nihilistic". I agree with these quotes.
I think that this play needs to be seen to fully appreciate the emotions of the characters. Now, personally, I've seen enough bad movies this year to want to spend $9.50 on the upcoming film. I might wait until I can use my free movie pass when the film has been out for a while or wait until I go back home to Dallas for Christmas where the prices are cheaper.
People who have seen the screening of Closer have said what I'm going to say now:
I rate the play 3 stars and not higher because I didn't feel any sympathy for any of these characters. I'm kind of sick of all these morbid plays, films, with the life sucks attitude. There is no rainbow at the end, but worse, the characters don't learn from their mistakes. Maybe that's true in life, but to drive his point further home, the author could have shown another couple perhaps who WERE able to communicate, didn't commit adultery and had a happy life. The contrast would have shown how sad these other people were. The only character I felt sorry for was Alice. Though none of the characters' backgrounds were revealed, Alice's youth, half innocence and half cynicism rang true.
As a conservative Catholic and an idealist, this play is disturbing and disheartening. It's so easy today for so many people to give up on God, hope, real true love (not infatuation) and fall into the trap of MTV is the way life should be (Hollyweird, drug addict, alcoholic - it's fun to get drunk and act stupid, let's sleep with everyone, porno lifestyle) and just become cynical. I'll admit, I moved from Dallas to Los Angeles to break into acting and filmmaking. I just hope that I can follow in the footsteps of Mel Gibson, Moira Kelly and Jim Caviezel (won't do nudity in love scenes) and survive the immorality of Hollywood. Getting off my soapbox . . .
We all make mistakes and people learn from them. I believe there is sin (as shown in this story of how living in it and NOT learning from it can make one miserable). You shouldn't judge people from learning from their mistakes, but sin still should be judged. Otherwise, you'll end up like these characters, broken and cynical, and not able to differentiate between real true love (where communication, compassion, and understanding are KEY), and infatuation (sex, maybe some caring).
I learned a lot from this play. It is sad and disturbing, and I personally don't like the foul language, but this is what our societies have been reduced to.
The writing is pretty good, there is a lot of sharp wit in the exchanges between the characters, which brought some humor to the story.
** Look for all the "connections" between the characters. Without giving anything away . . . Look for how the 4 characters are connected. The cultural spots in London, clothing, Newton's Cradle . . . interesting.**
In my opinion, Alice is the one who is the most wise, though she is probably a decade or more younger than the other characters. Kind of sad.
Favorite lines:
Alice: How . . .? How does it work? How can you do this to someone?
that is from one scene. And the following is line is from the next to last scene from the play.
" ' I fell in love' - as if you had no choice. There's a moment, there's always a moment; I can do this, I can give in to this or I can resist it . . . You didn't fall in love, you gave into temptation."
Very thought provoking. This book shows that if you really don't know yourself or love yourself, you can't fall in love with someone, because you're not honest with yourself, with the person you're with - hence no communcation, which will lead to adultery and anything else that's dysfunctional and will ruin your relationship.
Overall, this play is sad, depressing, pessimistic, whatever.
But even as a conservative person, I still enjoyed it. It makes you THINK. Things can happen to anyone, no matter what your background is. You have to be strong, communicate and truly love someone for who they are.
Sorry for blabbering on everyone. I apologize. I hope my review helped a little. I didn't want to give anything away.
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