Does anyone think there is going to be a national tour of Coast of
Utopia? At what point did Light at the Piazza announce its national
tour? Do most LCT productions go on national tour?
This was a behemoth undertaking, but I don't see the set being very
hard to trans****t (particularly when you compare it to Wicked).
I've noticed a pattern among what people say, first they say "I heard
it was so good so I thought it must be me doing XYZ wrong" and then
they leave saying "its gonna come together in the next part, I must
have a ticket to the next part". I've left both Voyage and ****pwreck
wondering what I must be missing since everyone has said it was so
good so I spent hours rereading the play and researching everyone in
the play on Wikipedia (i think I was right at the start- you do need
to be a history buff), finally I had a basic understanding of who was
who and what was going on causing me to I assume that what I've seen
so far is just an "investment" and its gonna get really good next week
when I see the next part.
Maybe its not me, maybe The Coast of Utopia is just not what it was
cracked up to be. Quite a bit of what happened in Voyage didn't
directly add or relate to ****pwreck or did so marginally; maybe this
is a play by someone who can't trim down their story and keep it
focused. Part of the issue is i'm not sure what to expect from this,
after seeing Voyage I though it was "historical fiction" like Titanic,
then I read more about the play and realized how many of the
characters were real so I thought it was trying to depict the history
of revolutions across Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century.
After tonight I decided that couldn't be the case, if it was they
would have spent more time on Michal and his travels and less on
Natalie and her relation****ps (the prime example of this was the 10
minute scene where she is ****, to an extent it was warranted and
definitely not out of line, but nonetheless it was superfluous. You
know, if she faced my side of the theater i might feel differently....
just kidding), the ending was moving, but had little to do with the
state of Europe. If you turn it around and look at it as a soap opera
set in the backdrop 18th and 19th century European revolutions all of
this soap opera stuff makes sense. It should be more clear what The
Coast of Utopia is about, particularly since more people are
interested a drama or a soap operas than in a lesson in the history of
European revolutions.
The viability of Coast of Utopia on tour depends on what "lay people"
think of it, after seeing it do most feel like me, or do they still
rave about it? I'm a New Yorker and a devote theater buff who will
see most anything for the right price and even i questioned if Coast
of Utopia was for me, now I'm questioning if it was all it was cracked
up to be and worth my time or money. Will there even be any demand for
it whatsoever by the time its finished its NY run?
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