Talk Radio

Last night, we went to saw Talk Radio with Byrne. First, a comment about the Longacre Theatre, where Talk Radio is playing. The Longacre SUCKS!

The two main things I consider when deciding whether I like a theater are acoustics and comfort. The Longacre Theatre's acoustics suck--when the actors' voices weren't amplified by the "on the air" microphones, there were times when they were hard to hear. As for comfort, forget it! My seat was painful! To some degree, I try to be forgiving in such things, since I'm not a small guy, but Marc was in pain, too, and I could hear rather small-size people around me complaining. Just terrible!

Now, as for the show, it was terrific! The cast was good, but the whole thing really rested on Liev Schreiber, and he was fabulous! I'll admit that, for years, I've had a bit of a crush on Liev Schreiber. He's not a pretty boy or anything, but I've always found something sexy and confident about him. Well, that had nothing to do with my enjoyment of this show.

His performance was terrific! He plays the part of an obnoxious talk-radio host who is rude to his callers and stirs people up for entertainment. To borrow one quote (of him speaking to his audience/callers) from the show's advertising, "Everything's screwed up, and you like it that way, don't you? You're fascinated by the gory details. You're mesmerized by your own fear. You revel in floods and car accidents and unstoppable diseases. You're happiest when others are in pain! And that's where I come in, isn't it?"

As we watch, Liev Schreiber's character, Barry Champlain, has a meltdown. What's really telling is that the meltdown just feeds this kind of radio work. The show was very entertaining, and Mr. Schreiber's performance of this messed up, intelligent, twisted character was terrific! Painful seats and questionable acoustics notwithstanding, I'm glad we went!