it turns out that Clarke’s excellent film is true to the play. though I suspect that Gelber was as committed to pure shock value as Clarke, both pieces of media deal well with the sorrow of failing to make art about real experience, an experience that is both more banal and more nuanced than the artistic product. I don’t find addiction particularly interesting (Clarke explicitly did not, too) but it does give these provocateurs material to work with and they both retained a surprising and welcome amount of social consciousness. Clarke wisely ditches the play conceit and cuts the number of interlopers to two, but Gelber’s play necessarily bothers the audience by including plants and making the whole auditorium the stage. at times it is too lofty but mostly it is interesting and a little tender. this is like the L'arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat of plays for how much it scared audiences into thinking it was real lol.