No Dice
"How can we transform," asks the cast, "the universal cosmic murmur" that is everyday conversation? Nature Theater of Oklahoma, based in New York, answers with this distillation of 100 or so hours of conversations - beautifully performed and riveting in its second act.
No Dice.
"How can we transform," asks the cast, "the universal cosmic murmur" that is everyday conversation? Nature Theater of Oklahoma, based in New York, answers with this distillation of 100 or so hours of conversations - beautifully performed and riveting in its second act.
Too bad for the folks who left at intermission on opening night Tuesday, where No Dice plays out in an empty former Rite Aid. They may have been numb from the seemingly rambling first act, and feared the show's indulgent length: 3 hours and 45 minutes, including sandwiches and sodas at the beginning (there's a dinner-theater sub-theme) and an intermission.
OK, so No Dice is clearly trimmable - but stick it out; the payoff is fascinating and the performances, fabulous. Drinking, work problems, an urgent e-mail: A flotsam of subjects form the show's mosaic, in which patter takes weird turns and people fail to finish thoughts, just like ... normal. Put actors in theatrical dress and the conversations in a theatrical context, and the words are reborn. Assign those words to other actors, provide melancholy music (played live by Kristin Worrall), and they transform again.