I have heard Far Away described as the perfect play: the first scene is personal, the second societal, and the third universal.
At the start of the play — the first scene, late at night, in the farmhouse, Quinn Carney (played by the British screen actor Paddy Considine, in his theatre début) asks his sister-in-law, Caitlin Laura Donnelyy), with whom would she paddle off in a lifeboat: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, or Led Zeppelin?
The only possible complaints were that Yoko Takebe was not quite incisive enough with the insistent spiccato playing in the first scene and that Joseph Alessi's trombone was at times far louder than needed even to dominate the ensemble.
Aurora, played in the first scene by a puppet, is a holy terror; the fairies have names like Feral and Tantrum; the final divertissement is set in a night club.
(The word "steroid" is never used in the play.) In the first scene, set before the opening game of a World Series, Raul and Kent tussle over whether Raul should turn on the team's nervous rookie, Adam Michael Mosleyy), to their regimen.
The godmother, who resembles the Sugar Plum Fairy, gets the action off to a slow start until the seasons come into play, although in the first scene, Mr. Mejia has eliminated the dancing master for the stepsisters.
With only four singers (baritone Steven Page skilfully plays the Old Man in the first scene and the canny Vagrant in the last), and an orchestra of 14 players, the production is as economical as it is engaging.
Robbins employs masks, costumes, video projections, and music to get his point across — "Let's Have a War," by the hard-core band Fear, plays at the end of the first scene — but by the time the ninety-minute piece is over you feel as if an axe dipped in political correctness had been wedged into the back of your neck.
The first scene plays the same game as all of T and P's bits, except K and K are in a gynecologists office, and blow the toupee off of their vag doctor through vigorous queefage.
I listen to the play a bit, go over the first scene, occasionally I walk around backstage thinking about Hickey's inner monologue as he walks all the way from Queens to the West Village.
I've never been in a play where you say in the first scene "George didn't cry" and everyone immediately knows who you're talking about.
