Oh, there's a ton of stuff I'd like to know. To get started......
1. How did working the wives in by means of film in the background (?) work... did you get any sense of Alma the way you certainly do in the short story? And what about the scene with Jack's parents? Especially Jack's father denying Ennis the ashes? How was that done- by means of the actor reading the passage?
2. Did they use sound clips actively to create the atmosphere.... like sheep bleating, sound of river, cars driving up and driving away.......nature sounds I suppose, in Jack and Ennis's meetings out in nature?
3. Any comments on the play's version of the reunion kiss?
4. If they included all the text of the story, the motel room scene must have been pretty long and wordy?
5. And......Was it a full house?
6. Oh yeah - one more: Did they start with the prologue (Ennis alone in his trailer - suffused with happiness because Jack was in his dream?)
1. Alma was projected onto the cases you see in the picture. The passage from the book was read and you could see her face and some emotion on it when she saw J and E kissing. Not much attention was paid to the women, they had a tape of Lureen's voice when E calls her after J's death. It really was like it was in the short story.
In the scene with J's father the actor who plays Jack played his father by reading his dialogue.
2. They didn't use a lot of sound clips, no, it was a pretty quiet piece, they had some projections of sheep and of the postcard in E's hand. In the very first scene they used the sound of the thermostat in E's trailer.
3. Well, at first I thought they were just gonna read out the whole passage because Jack stood on the left side of the stage and Ennis on the right side. But in the middle of the reading out of the short story text, they walked up to each other and kissed and hugged and then kissed again. On the right side of the stage you could see the projection of Alma looking kind of shocked. Then they tore away from each other and Jack covered his crotch with his hat when they 'talked' to Alma. The crowd laughed at that. I thought it was really well done because you could feel the relief of seeing each other again.
4. I really liked the motel scene in the play. They did the whole first part (the description of how the room looked and smelled) in a very playful way, tugging at each other, taking each other's boots and shirts off and then just laying down (like in the short story, not like in the film). The dialogue went really quickly but it was very powerfully delivered. A lot of people laughed when Ennis asks Jack if he has been with other guys and Jack says hell no! It was delivered in a way that you know that the actor understood exactly what he had put across with that sentence.
5. You bet! I think 80% gay couples and some women and older straight couples.
6. Yes they did! I was very happy to see that and it was very powerful, especially because Jack narrated that!
Hope that answers your questions!