Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
RevivingUniverse, though,has always been a little dicey.
In 2000, Tomlin brought it back to Broadway, where the collective passion for it cooled.
Nowanothertwo decades down the slippery ribbon of space-time comes the current revival.
If the years between 1986 and 2000 were cruel, the years since have been homicidal.
Instead, its a trap.
Strong walks onstage pushing a shopping cart and dressed in a flyaway wig and dirty exercise gear.
Are her space chums real?
I can take it in small doses, but as a lifestyle I found it too confining.
Bob is the truest feminist Ive ever met, Lyn says to a friend.
Hes the only man Ive ever known who knew where he was when Sylvia Plath died.
This got a laugh after a long stretch of uncomfortable silence.
Instead, her eyes plead, and her attempts to rally the room seem desperate.
She doesnt get much help from the production either.
In a theater, there are all sorts of darknesses.
you’re able to tell when youre looking at one without warmth.
In that bleakness, theres a lot of time to mull over the nature of comedy.
Why has this specific piece aged so poorly?
Even the uneasy mix of modern references (laptops!)
Theres a danger too in being seminal.
When these characters were written, they werent cliches.
But the 80s took this stuff andranwith it.
But then we fought our way through movies likeThe Fisher KingandDown and Out in Beverly Hills.
Most damagingly, our appetite for certain rhythms has also changed.
Has something changed in how we process this stuff?
Did Twitter make us allergic to mottoes?
Or is the love of aphorisms something that phases in and out of favor?
What the heck was the past thinking?
What a shame its not around anymore, or Id ask.
