{"id":11966,"date":"2022-08-30T14:53:33","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T14:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/?p=11966"},"modified":"2022-11-03T18:22:17","modified_gmt":"2022-11-03T18:22:17","slug":"its-a-mad-mad-mad-mad-house-with-bill-pullman-and-david-harbour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/2022\/08\/30\/its-a-mad-mad-mad-mad-house-with-bill-pullman-and-david-harbour\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s a Mad Mad Mad “Mad House” with Bill Pullman and David Harbour"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
One of the most infuriating shows I’ve ever seen ends this weekend, so be sure to catch it but take your anti-anxiety pills first! Or just walk open-mouthed first through Goodman Fields; it’s basically a fishbowl!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Theresa Rebeck REALLY knows how to get my blood pressure up! With those annoying English major vibes in ‘Seminar’, those darn stamps in ‘Mauritius’, that insane idea that Katharine McPhee would ever be a serious contender to play Marilyn Monroe in ‘Smash’, boy oh boy is she the master of making me feel like Larry David! In ‘Mad House’, it’s her biggest success yet, at least according to my vitals. And, amazingly, the anxiety I suffered was not just because leading-man-in-movies-I-grew-up-on Bill Pullman is now playing the FATHER of men who are OLDER THAN ME. Time, what is it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bill Pullman plays the piece of shite father of David Harbour, a man who I always assumed was about the same age as Bill but I guess ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ was longer ago than I thought. Bill as this father is a really really bad man, so you aren’t too sad that the action is about how he’s dying. He’s ungrateful to his son who is only trying to care for him as he dies, his son who feels things too strongly and has suffered with mental illness and forced treatments in the past for, ostensibly, seeing the world as it really is. Literally David’s entire life is caring for his father, as he has nothing else going on, but his father and siblings just brush him aside for being crazy and worthless and it’s INFURIATING.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we meet David and Bill (character names here would just confuse you, right), a new home nurse for Bill is arriving. Her name is Lillian, and she is Black, so you know your anxiety is probably going to rise even more because it’s obvious that most of this Pennsylvania family is the reason the commonwealth isn’t safely blue. Lillian is so good, played by Akiya Henry, a necessary relief of a calming presence without getting too close to the (very popular lately especially for therapist characters!) trope of the Black woman magically there to solve the lead white characters’ problems. Her too tragic backstory made her easy to connect with and care for, which this show needed since everyone else makes you want to scream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That ‘everyone else’ being David’s rich prick of a brother Nedward and his beyond monstrous sister Pam. They show up to determine who gets the big house when Bill dies, and like, they are very obvious about it. Bill knows that’s why they’re there, David knows, everyone knows and these two bellends are just fighting about how to make sure David doesn’t get anything, because he’s crazy (he’s not) (really) and they are so unbelievably greedy and unfeeling that it’s often hard to reconcile them with any semblance of real human beings. They talk openly about how to finagle things so they can get David committed again, like they did before, and my god, the impotent frustration of having other people able to do such things and decide you’re insane to the point that you don’t have agency over your own life or ability to show emotions is SO UNFAIR, the system is really so broken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David’s deceased mother’s assessment of him – that he’s full of anger because he sees how the world really is – REALLY RESONATED with me, especially as we see more and more that his siblings, mainly his sister, have zero zero zeroooo redeeming qualities. Pam, in particular, has no arc, she is just a straight line that falls off a cliff at the end (in terms of visualizing the line being graphed; she doesn’t actually fall off a cliff, though I would happily eagerly excitedly push her off one). She is honestly the worst human I’ve ever seen depicted onstage. I feel like even Mitch McConnell has more redeeming qualities, which is saying a lot since he is the devil’s stomach cancer. Like he might poke his little turtle head out of his little shit-stained turtle shell and watch this play and be like, ‘fuck this bitch SUCKS’. She really does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nedward, the brother, is potentially? maybe? is this true? even worse because he’s a coward who seems to sometimes know the difference between right and wrong and care about that difference (unlike his sister), but he won’t stand up and do anything about it. And isn’t KNOWING BETTER but not ACTING BETTER even though you are ABLE TO the worst of all? Ned is Switzerland (and no, Switzerland wasn’t ‘neutral’ and if you still believe those lies you probably need to take a grown-up history class).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bill, in the end, thankfully shows tiny little hamster-ball-sized (I just rewatched ‘The Heat’) signs of redemption at the end, unlike his POS daughter, which you’re like ‘thank f-ing GOD’ about because it’s hard to just hate and hate and hate so many people, it’s EXHAUSTING, please VOTE IN NOVEMBER. He was very convincing, and good I guess, but I just cannot accept that we are at the stage in this timeline where BILL PULLMAN is playing the father of a man older than I am. I mean, Bill Pullman. our romcom lovable doof! Sleepless! While You Were Sleeping! His being allergic to everything aged him (no they made him act and look suuuupes older than he actually is (I think\/hope) so at least we have that to relieve our anxiety).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’ve never identified more with a character than with David Harbour’s VERY angry, screamy, frustrated beyond belief with the state of humanity Michael (oh I guess I do remember his character’s name! a miracle), who he portrayed very well mainly by being David Harbour, who is just magnetic on the stage. Everyone thinks he’s insane because he gets loud and angry but he’s usually completely justified! Everyone around him is a piece of shit! His two siblings just want to lock him up so they can sell the house and split the profits in half instead of in thirds. They are literally garbage MONSTER people, so greedy and evil that they will commit someone to a (from the sounds of it, not fun uh TALL!) mental institution where he will continue to be gaslit. Sure he’s not perfect and he could use anger management classes but that’s not the same as needing to be involuntarily COMMITTED because he sees how f-ing horrible his family is! This f-ing sister kept his dying mother from seeing her favorite son one last time just because she was jealous that he was the favorite! OF COURSE SHE LOVED HIM MORE THAN YOU YOU ARE A PIECE OF SHIT YOU BLOOD-SUCKING MONSTER.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The evilness of the sister was so outrageous – and eventually so without any comeuppance or reprisal or remorse or any consequences or reckoning – that ultimately it was unsatisfying. Just too much frustration. I really actually thought\/hoped that Michael might end up killing her. (There’s mention in the beginning of guns; Daniel says he suspects Michael has guns (it IS rural PA after all (also Ned at one point says Pennsylvan-eee-ya which is when I realized the actor wasn’t actually American (also dropped a ‘the’ before saying hospital) so otherwise he did a bang-up job (I think that is British for good), otherwise great accent work))) and Michael denies it, and I thought that that would come back in the end to show he actually DOES have guns, but he doesn’t and it didn’t, because as husband sadly said to me after, ‘the Chekhov play was LAST night.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n INFORMATION<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As with most West End theatres, the facilities are a joke, with 3 ladies toilets for the upstairs (unsure of the downstairs sitch, wouldn’t be surprised if this was the only toilet for the whole theatre) and nooo room to stand anywhere on any level. L6, in the last row in house (the only circle) is IN THE AISLE so no one is in front of you and you have a clear runway to the bathroom, it’s just a splendid seat (although the people in the 5 person row with us had clearly only been to the panto before because they acted like this was the muhfucking children’s section – singing along when David sang Danny Boy???? saying “MMM HMMM” when the only black actor on the stage made a good point? total yikes, white boy.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also 6 pounds for programs. Y’all need Playbill over here yesterday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the most infuriating shows I’ve ever seen ends this weekend, so be sure to catch it but take your anti-anxiety pills first! Or just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-theatre"],"yoast_head":"\n