Closer, performed on November 26, 2000 at the Mark Taper Forum, was an excellent show. The play is about two men and two women who are thrown together by chance. Throughout the play, they connect, disconnect and reconnect in bewildering combinations with each other as they try to get "closer" All their privacies, as well as secrets, are brought out in the open and nothing is hidden. It is presented to the audience in a daring and obscene manner, which is at the same time thrilling, intimate, and funny. Closer reveals much about today's modern sexual politics and how little we sometimes really know about it.
             During the performance, I found it difficult at times to follow, however, this is at no fault of the actors and only of that of the playwright. All the actors presented themselves extremely well. There are several moments such as the opening that contain monologues. This, in my opinion, is always one of the hardest things to do; however, I thought that the actress was not in her moment during the beginning of her monologue. She seemed to be just saying her lines while staring into space. It was only after a few minutes that it seemed like she turned on a switch and suddenly popped into character. I thought about this for a while and I kept wondering why she could do it a few minutes into her monologue but not at the beginning. The only conclusion that I had for this was that the show was held for nearly twenty minutes and this added stress to the actor (since she had the opening of the show) and perhaps she "warmed down" in this period of time. This only convinced me more on how important it is to warm up before a show as we discussed in class.
             There also was one point in the show where no lines existed between two characters. They were chattering over the Internet and the only way we knew what they were saying was there was a projection screen that displayed what they were supposedly typing. I found this part particularly in...