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Its like that Hollywood phenomenon of releasing weirdly similar movies at the same time.
(ArmageddonandDeep Impact,BabeandGordy,A Bugs LifeandAntz I mean, really?)
Both plays premiered Off Broadway in 1987.
Both are set in apartments in what now feels like a grittily poetic New York of yore.
I see something I want, I dont take no.
Johnnys a short order cook and Frankies a waitress.
But for Johnny, somethings going on in this room, something important.
This woman he hardly knows is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the One.
This is the only chance we have to really come together, he insists to the taken-aback Frankie.
People are given one moment to connect.
Not two, not three, one!
They dont take it, its gone forever.
Dont get me wrong: I like a good romance.
Or do we squirm a bit at whats essentially a play-length version of no means yes?
He keeps discovering overlaps in his and Frankies habits and pasts (Youre from Allentown?
I was born in Allentown!
Hes also both very funny and truly moving in his scruffy affection for Shakespeare, whom he keeps semi-quoting.
Ive only read of a couple of his things.
Lots of old words.
Archaic, you know?
Its moments like that that keepFrankie & Johnnyafloat the human eccentricities and observations, both little and big.
It might show its shortcomings in the light of day, but it looks okay in the moonlight.
Frankie & Johnny in the Claire de Luneis at theBroadhurst Theatre.
