New P.T. Anderson Play Shatters Snoopy-Humping Taboo
The Paul Thomas Anderson Stage Revue we'd mentioned a while back was finally unveiled last night at Largo, where Fred Armisen and Maya Rudolph reportedly performed a succession of new sketches with Jon Brion's musical accompaniment. And according to one eyewitness who espied Jack Black and Paul Dano among his fellow attendees, the show was a little less There Will Be Blood than Punch-Drunk Love, with liberal, Altmanesque doses of I Really Don't Feel Like Writing Another Feature-Length Screenplay Right Now tossed in for good measure:
After the audience stood up for a Spanish version of "God Bless America," the actors sat down and got right into it. First up we met a couple whose love for alcohol is at the center of their connection, then a couple getting to know each other over a complicated personality test (Armisen: "Do you often have emotional outbursts without thinking them through?" Rudolph: "What kind of fucking question is that?"), then a third couple on their first date as they discuss stuffed animals (Rudolph: "When I was little, I used to put Snoopy between my legs and just hump him so hard. I humped him and humped him until his nose broke off.").
Sorry — spoiler alert? The (re)viewer notes that the vignettes comprised roughly 15 couples in all, with little more connective tissue than its author's irreverence and the SNL veterans channeling it. It can't be any worse than Baby Mama. Find out for yourself if you're feeling adventurous and can manage to mug a ticketholder; even Craigslist has nothing doing for tonight's second and final show.