>Bouton wrote: "You seem to be describing a place where there's all these
wildly-
>praised shows, brimming with liberal bromides. Where would this be? "
At the Seattle Repertory Theatre, for one, where David Esbjornsen just
announced he's leaving at the end of the 2009 season -- a cause
for rejoicing. After seeing what he did to TWELFTH NIGHT, I think the
man should be banned from the theatre for life. The managing director
stated, in an interview, that Esbjornsen's seasons had been "edgy".
Now I understand why Meryl Streep laudably answered, when asked her
least favorite word, "edgy". In Mr. Esbjornsen's case, "edgy"
apparently means tediously didactic and theatrically inept. I've
never seen a professional director as incapable of pacing a show or
creating living relation****ps among the characters onstage.
Esbjornsen's one talent, a small one, is an ability to create pretty
stage pictures with lighting and scrims, but actors seem to be for him
so much furniture.
But who cares if a director's incompetent! What matters is that his
politics are correct, hence DE's major career at the WIlliamsburg
Festival, on Broadway, and at the Seattle Rep.
Mr. Bouton, as happens often when I'm writing fast, I get off on a
tangent. My post ended up being about something besides A CATERED
AFFAIR, a show I haven't seen and cannot evaluate. What I said
applies mainly to the non-profit theatre around the country. On
Broadway, economics strictly limits the number of smug preach-a-thons
produced.
An example of what I really object to was a show in the mainstage
season at the Seattle Rep last year, a "revue" of period protest songs
sung sanctimoniously by a bunch of pompous self-congratulating actors
dressed as coal miners. The utterly dull and repetitive songs
alternated with sob sister monologues about black lung and the hard-
heartedness of the evil capitalists who run the mining companies.
***ism, domestic violence,a homophobia came in for a drubbing as well
(what a surprise!).
While everyone's heart goes out to coal miners in the early 20th
century
who were exploited, underpaid, and badly treated -- who in the
audience didn't know this going into the theatre? Who in the audience
thought coal miner's life in 1921 was a bowl of cherries, and
therefore needed this show to "eddykate" him? It is even less clear
how this smug, preachy show helped relieve anyone's oppression,
anywhere. It didn't, of course. Such theatre helps no one and
changes no one's mind. It's just an occasion for self-im****tant
actors to lay guilt trips on their audience and feel superior.
In a lifetime of theatre-going I have NEVER seen an audience as bored
as the one I saw this show with. Yet at the end, they rose wearily to
their feet to give the cast a standing ovation. Because you see, all
these Prius-driving Seattle progressive Yuppies were eager to show
each other how much *they* care about the oppressed, and
were willing to endure two solid hours of boredom to prove it. This
is theatre-as-castor-oil, theatre-as-a-hair-****rt. Pretending to
enjoy this kind of **** shows your neighbors and your peers you're a
compassionate, right-
thinking person. Bravo for me!
The Rep followed this up with an even preachier "theatre piece" about
Hurricane Katrina which even the critics couldn't stomach, although
they heartily approved its laying the blame for a meteorological
phenomenon squarely on Prez Bush and white people in general. They
couldn't give away the tickets ...
BTW, even THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA shows the influence of theatrical
Puritanism. The romanticism of the show was disguised by presenting
the more lyrical ****tions in an untranslated foreign language and
Guettel's Richard Straussian harmonies protected him from the
unspeakable charge of sentimentality.
On Apr 19, 8:51 am, New****tsRe...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Steve New****t) wrote:
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