Old women say "fuck," "cunt," and "goddamn" just like the rest of us. That's what I learned on Saturday, after sitting through an interminable 105 minutes of watching Marian Seldes and Angela Lansbury squirm in what appear to be uncomfortable plastic stadium seats. That old adage about the phone book isn't true; it's horrifying when it actually happens. The play ranks among McNally's worst. On top of that, lines were dropped more often than a hot potato in a kindergarten class. Owing, I'm guessing, to a constantly changing script, a scriptgirl was heard from my seat in Row B of the mezzanine, feeding lines to both of the two ladies throughout the show. I stopped counting after I heard the disembodied voice (uncredited, of course) more than 30 times. Let's hope this shapes up, or else what was once the most anticpated Broadway play of the season will quickly become the most panned one. Someone should start a pool to determine how many performances this will actually last. I'd put 10 bucks on any of the single digit squares. Perhaps we should lobby the award committee so the scriptgirl could get a Tony nom?
