Customer Reviews

Closer

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Strange things are the human beings. Come to think of them. We are never happy with what we have-- we always want more, and we always have a hard time trying to fulfill our egotistical desire. This wish is what moves the characters in Patrick Marber's play `Closer'.

A group of four characters get together and falls a part. It begins when the stripper Alice meets the journalist Dan. Months later they are married, he has written a book, and he meets the photographer Anna, who's taking his pictures to the book jacket. Dan grows obsessed with Anna. In an Internet chat room, while pretends to be Anna, Dan meets and have `sex' with the dermatologist Larry. They arrange to meet in the Zoo on the following day. Larry goes there and by coincidence the real Anna is there. They end up getting together and married. This is when these four persons relationships are about to get more complicated.

It is undeniable that what moves Marber's characters is the sexual attraction, rather than love itself. People desire each other, more than love --albeit they can say they are in love. Dan seems to be the kind of man who wants to be with as much women as possible, while Larry appears to be in love, at first. But this feeling total disappears and becomes a feeling of revenge --sexual speaking. He wants to hurt both Anna and Dan. On the other hand, Alice has a blasé behavior at first, which ends up being an obsessive sexual relationship as the time goes. Moreover, Alice develops a sick patter through the years. Anna, while seems to be a strong and independent woman at first, turns out to be fragile until when she is hurt very hard, and has to be strong again.

The dramatist manages to give a sad and honest look in love and desire in our times. His characters and situations are totally believable and well developed. We can go inside people's feelings and understand what moves them. Not a single scene has flaws-- everything and everyone are where they are supposed to be. A great play for our times.

After falling in love with the movie, and purchasing the movie script - which contains a lot more scenes from the play that were shot and then deleted from the movie during editing, I figured reading the book would be the best way to connect all dots, as the movie's timeline can lead to confusion. Love the book too. I know many people find the whole topic and dialogue obscene, vulgar, boring, depressing and irrelevant, but I really enjoy it, and find the dialogue clever, refreshing, realistic. Having read Closer I understand the movie a lot better. Either way, this is fantastic.

There is a wonderful line in Patrick Marber's "Closer," one of a great many, in which one character asks, "Have you ever seen a human heart? It looks like a fist wrapped in blood!" That line perfectly sums up Marber's play, which has become something of a contemporary classic since it hit stages in 1997. "Closer" is a cynic's love story, the tale of four strangers whose lives interweave as they fall in and out of love with each other over the course of years. There's Dan, the obituarist who dreams of becoming a writer; Anna, the photographer who tries not to dream; Alice, the stripper who just wants to be loved; and Larry, the dermatologist who watches it all with a devious eye.

"Closer" was made into a woefully misunderstood and truthfully stellar film by director Mike Nichols, with perfect casting (Jude Law as Dan, Julia Roberts as Anna, Natalie Portman as Alice, Clive Owen as Larry), but Marber's play is still better. It's everything a play should be: observant, amusing, realistic, and above all else, thoughtful. Most animals don't stay with one partner through their entire life, and what are humans but animals? Can we ever truly find our "soulmates," or are we meant to just drift in and out of love throughout our lives? If Marber knows, he doesn't show it. "Closer" is one great, big, hard-hitting question, spoken by Alice: "Why isn't love enough?"

I must admit, I'm not much of a fan of the stage. Previously, only the work of Tennessee Williams had really impressed me. But Patrick Marber's "Closer" is playwriting perfection. It's impeccably structured and loaded with no-holds-barred, simply brilliant dialogue. Regardless of your opinions of theatre, or even if you've never read a play before, I would highly recommend "Closer."

Like Pinter, minus the abundance of pauses. Degradation, infedility, lies, youth, sex,drugs,and love. It is hard not to find an aspect of yourself within this play. The pain and pleasure that ensues is glorious.A funny and tremendously delicious work.

Fall 2000 I saw a production of CLOSER at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and really enjoyed it. What I got from Marber's play is that modern relationships are doomed to failure. Men and women are always trying to find the better, more exciting partner. Or we men follow our you-know-what-around while women flit from man to man in search of companionship that excites them. This is hardly new territory, but Marber makes it entertaining...yet I didn't feel a whole lot of sympathy for any of the characters.

The play is much better when you HEAR the lines spoken from good actors. On the page the dialogue flows, but somehow it seems
too easy...too calculated and too clever for it's own good.
Also, I wasn't aware of the time shifts: live on stage I was under the impression this all takes place in a matter of days or weeks not years! (why this is not made known to the audience is somewhat puzzling to me....)

I look forward to seeing more of Marber's work performed live.

Patrick Marber's comic drama CLOSER is a brilliant examination of what it means to be human in an increasingly technological society. Marber is interested in a world where humans interact through machines, rather than true and intimate connection. His exploration of four British thirtysomethings--Anna, Larry, Alice and Dan--has been compared to another classic four person play, Albee's WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF. While chronicling the psychosexual lives of his characters, Marber's CLOSER makes a bold cultural statement: a definitive play about a definitive era. Reminding readers and audience members of the difficulties of becoming "closer," Marber viscerally suggests that human connection could be impossible for members of our millenium. Hugely popular in the UK, it is one of the most thoughtful plays of the century. As a work that shocks and disturbs while it amuses, CLOSER has become indelibly imprinted in our theatrical and personal histories.

Contains spoilers: I was blown away by the film, and couldn't wait to read the play, assuming that it would be even better. Overall I liked the film better. I've read that Clive Owen is one to pare his lines, and doing this in the film improved Larry, making him more sympathetic. The script does, however, have details that I wish had been included in the film. I thought Julia Roberts was outstanding as Anna, but Anna's character in the play seems more fleshed out, and I loved it that she and Larry divorced and she got a dog to love! Alice/Jane's film character, as played by Natalie Portman, was riveting, but I wish they'd included the stuff about her scar in the film. I just didn't like Dan's character in either version, but I have to say that I thought Jude Law was brilliant in the part of Dan, and a perfect antagonist to Clive Owen's Larry.

This has to be one of the most thought-provoking play and movie I have seen in a while. I love that it is completely honest, and exaggerates our own human desires. It shows us what we are capable of. I think Alice is a representative of every young impressionable girl, wanting to be someone, anyone. She expresses young inner desire. Anna is a representative of an older woman, but she still shows how no matter how much you have been through, desire and lust still happen, and maybe we don't really learn from all of our mistakes. I think there is a piece of everyone in each character, and they just represent who we really are when we take our barriers away. This play continues to amaze me.

DAN. What do you want ?
ALICE. To be loved.
DAN. That simple ?
ALICE. It's a big want.

Somebody to watch, Marber is equally skilled as an author and a director, succeeding where Mamet was lukewarm on "The Old Neighborhood" in London's West End. Come see it at Steppenwolf in Spring 1999, I myself saw it once in London and twice on Broadway. Caution on the language however, not for the faint of heart.

Somebody to watch, Marber is equally skilled as an author and a director, succeeding where Mamet was lukewarm on "The Old Neighborhood" in London's West End. Come see it at Steppenwolf in Spring 1999, I myself saw it once in London and twice on Broadway.