For a start, read the New York Times' review on 'High' here, which may influence you to watch this play on Broadway. It stars Kathleen Turner
who I saw on stage on a busy weekend with another friend - we were planning to watch Vanessa Redgrave
on 'Driving Ms. Daisy
' but we're told she won't be on stage that matinee. We quickly returned our tickets and switched to watching 'High.'We didn't read nor have known anything about this play by Matthew Lombardo
. I just noted from the playbill that she would be playing the unusual role of a nun. There were just 3 characters in this play that included a brief intermission. I enjoyed the 3/4 of this show until its end was unfolded on stage. It left me kinda feeling hanging with its current ending, which I hope they can still remedy on. My friend doesn't agree much with me on this, which is OK. Of course, I like Ms. Turner's last line, which is "I wanna get high
" (which could very well be a line signifying the desire to run away from one's very pressing and guilt-ridden situation).Something I'd like to be improved about this play? It's the use of the sacrament of reconciliation
as an approach to make a client open up. In this play, the nun tricked (or did she?) the young man to confess his sins as he was already dying. In the Roman Catholic Church, priests (not nuns & other religious) listen to confessions and provide for the absolution. The use of this approach in this play must have been just a technique to make it more dramatic but still I hope this can be improved to correct some mis-impressions on certain Church practices. The play is more or else about this issue of helping those who we think need our help, when in fact they're not even asking for help from us. Also, the play asks about 'who helps those who are in the helping business?' that has been set in a church setting, in this case in a Roman Catholic
social service project which could very well be somewhere here in the US. Ms. Turner's role of an ex-alcoholic nun who is very much active in providing counseling services defines something not quite familiar to most everyone in the audience unless if they've been active in the Church. It gets away with confronting guilt and related issues we normally face when we relate with others we meet in our daily lives, especially if we belong to a community that's affiliated with the Church
. I can imagine those non-Catholics
(or at least those who are not active Church goers) among the audience that afternoon would have some confusion over some lines used in this play, which include some prayers usually taught during catechism classes. Also, the character of the priest seems to remind me of someone I personally knew. No, he's not the abusive priest-stereotype we read most often these days. He's in fact working on his guilt of having not heaped much help to his deceased sister whose son happens to be the third character in this play and who's being counseled by the role of Ms. Turner. Everybody seems to need help, one way or another, in this play. It's a sparsely designed play that somehow felt eerily intimate while being unfolded before my eyes by the 3 characters' lines (some of which are monologues by Ms. Turner). It's completely unexpected watching another actor go naked (played by Evan Jonigkeit) on stage, which could be very helpful to one's artistic career these days. You may have seen a similar character on the street or in the subway before - one of which was portrayed here but he got naked before your eyes on stage this time.
I enjoyed the starry evening settings provided many times here. I was curious about the white clouds shown on the small HDTV screen that I noticed were changing while we were waiting for the play to start (or they could have been really part of this play). Somehow, I could sense these clouds connect with the main point of this play. The clouds looked tiny as compared to the massive and enveloping darkness provided by the stage - it could very well remind me of relief I feel during down-times or when I'm living on the edge. I couldn't help but feel good there are still clouds hovering above me amidst the dark thoughts that get into me at times. I can very well imagine Sister Jamison (Ms. Turner's character) must be feeling similarly whenever she remembers her unforgiven guilt over the fact that her sister was raped and murdered because she invited into their own house the murderer herself one fatal time when she wanted to have an innocent adolescent-period good time. This murdered sister never appears in this play but you'll feel her very presence. And mainly for this, this play is worth watching.
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