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Seared
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“San Francisco Playhouse just opened its new season with a world premiere of Theresa Rebeck’s “Seared” That’s so expertly acted and so empathically directed (by Margarett Perry) that you’re likely to stagger out of the theatre emotionally satisfied—and hungry.” |
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“The steam is rising from a bubbling pot when you walk into San Francisco Playhouse for the world premiere of “Seared,” and if you arrive early enough, get close to the stage and have sharp olfactory receptors, you’ll sniff the aroma of sizzling garlic and onions. Since this play is a commission by Theresa Rebeck, it’s not just the food in the functioning kitchen of Bill English’s set design that sizzles. ‘Seared,’ which opened Saturday, under the taut direction of Margarett Perry, starts on high heat and gets only hotter.” |
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“The words that Rebeck has put in the characters' mouths can find the luminous in the mundane, and they glow even more in director Margarett Perry's production that is filled with pauses, gestures, movements, and subtle inflections provided by a cast that seems intuitively at one with the material. It's not really a question of who created what, or how the pieces are so flawlessly mitered, for it is a unified invention by the time it reaches the audience.”
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“Perry's direction is well-considered from the choreographed discordance of characters slamming conversations into one another to the simple brief tableaus of characters in thoughtful repose during scene changes. Seared is main course all the way, with no desserts offered. The chef doesn't allow it, nor do we crave it. Satisfaction is so complete that you'd think the scallops had been available all along.” |
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“Rebeck’s play, flawlessly directed by Margarett Perry, is so involving that at a certain point in this darkly funny, deliciously detailed drama you expect an overheated audience member to stand up and shout something along the lines of, “Just cook the fucking scallops already!” …Never has the creation of a seafood dish fueled such dramatic agony and tension.” |
