Kathleen Turner play ‘High’ reaches a low on Broadway

Producers said yesterday that the show, which opened Tuesday night, will close on Sunday, having failed to become a box office addiction. When it closes, “High” will have played just 28 previews and eight regular performances.

“High,” by playwright Matthew Lombardo, is a three-person play featuring Turner as a foul-mouthed nun trying to help a young meth addict. Turner had nurtured the play through out-of-town tryouts in Hartford, Cincinnati, and St. Louis.

Reviews were mixed and the box office numbers were worse, with “High” taking in only $91,000 in previews last week from a potential gross of $536,000.

The New York Daily News said,

Turner's whisky-soaked voice assumes a dreamy quality in these recollections. Only in the final moments do you understand the whole, terrible truth of the story and realize what she's been saying, and the way she's been saying it, has been manipulative and false. The device is meant to be a final gripping jolt. But it's a buzz-kill for “High.”

And the New York Times,

“High”  isn't a particularly subtle or deep drama, despite some fancy narration about the conversion of St. Augustine and the mysterious ways of God in shaping human destinies. But it does afford Ms. Turner's fans a choice opportunity to bask in her undeniable star wattage. Her performance as the tough but troubled Sister Jamie is funny, consistently entertaining and at times satisfyingly hammy.

Photo: Evan Jonigkeit and Kathleen Turner in “High”, by Lanny Nagler

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.