We really don't care about theatre do we?

Saw Orgy of Tolerance on Wednesday night. I saw it as a bunch of 'tableaux': really well put together, the final dance off was brilliant -- and one of two LOL moments for me; the other was the 'Come Together' bit.

Wasn't so hot on any underlying ideas, and maybe that's why I wasn't laughing as much and finding it as funny as I thought I could. This constant evasion and pre-emption; the need to not be pegged down...ultimately this got pretty tiresome. I liked the title of this A LOT but the promise, ultimately, was not to be fulfilled.

Glad I went.

i'm glad you went and your thoughts echo mine to some extent but, even though some of the ideas are pretty adolescent and some of the scenes didn't work (specifically the stylist making over J C which was a major misfire) i was carried away by the enthusuasm of the whole thing and it is extremely well crafted in spite of seeming random.

i mean, the shopping trolley waltz and the rifle-up-the-arse were worth the price of admission alone and there were many many more great scenes than that.

having said that it was probably only the 3rd or 4th best thing i have seen this year so far.

on monday i saw one of my (two) favourites things of this year, Ontroerend Goed's "Once And For All We're Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up And Listen". The show is preformed by teenagers and intended for teenagers and adults. i thought it was completely thrilling. a example of just how great devised theatre can be. if you get a chance to see this run, don't walk. i took my 14 year olf neice to see it and she left like this *_*

"i mean, the shopping trolley waltz and the rifle-up-the-arse were worth the price of admission alone and there were many many more great scenes than that."

I can definitely agree that you can't fault it if you go on a pure scene by scene basis, the hit rate is high, and the very first 10 mins did the whole take no prisoners thing well.

I didn't find it all that random because I could see the underlying idea that connected the scenes.

I went to see the newish Enda Walsh play The New Electric Ballroom (guy who wrote dialogue for Hunger, Disco Pigs) incredibly ornate Midlands-Gothic-High-Camp melodrama. It drew on equal parts Pinter, Waters and McCabe, which was a pretty awesome combo imo. Mikel Murfi pretty much redeemed himself for a decades worth of trading in on Galway Arts Festival goodwill. Great playful subversion of William Trevor Ballroom of romance RTE orthodoxy, genuinely unsettling revision of 1960's Ireland, even now more than fifteen years after the Butcher Boy. Obscenely brilliant stage design, A+ would be freaked out again.

ann liv young's "The Bagwell In Me" is truly incredible. i'm kind of speechless. it's hard to describe or explain just why it is so good. it's a huge leap forward from Snow white. quite possibly a work of genius.

going to see 'angela's mixtape' tonight. friend has offered me 'pay what you can' tix - anyone interested in joining?

Cherry Orchard pretty good, Mary Stuart great

philanthropist was mildly entertaining but overall something not worth seeing - there's no substance to it. i was more offended by godot, maybe because they did such a horrible job with a great play. this just wasn't a great play.

i'm not going to get to see the London Godot as I had thought :( i saw an Intiman production as a teenager.

If that was '91 or so, I saw that Intiman production as a 20-year-old.

that was it

angela's mixtape was pretty good! super funny at times, totally touching at others. eisa davis is some kind of superhuman and it's worth going just to watch her.
also, fun mixes on the blog: http://is.gd/r3m5

my mother is making me see a broadway play with the family, but i get to choose what to see. i've really got no interest or knowledge in this (though i used to love going when i was in HS), so what would yall recommend?

http://disney.go.com/theatre/redirect/littlemermaid/images/03-broadwaylogo.jpg

http://parenting.leehansen.com/downloads/webgraphics/Animations/hearts-afire.gif

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did anyone see west side story?

^this is what my mom wanted to see. i'd be down with it i guess...i did like the movie.

dunno if yall are trolling me w/ little mermaid, but it is pretty appealing. saw beauty and the beast a few years ago and liked

mary poppins is not bad - darker and more fun than the movie, but still geared towards kids.

the little mermaid is supposed to be totally horrible. i will still rep for the lion king.

tony noms here: http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/nominees/index.html
but are not necessarily a good indicator of what is actually worth seeing.

i've heard great things about mary stuart. billy elliot is supposedly just like the movie but enjoyable, fwiw. i'm interested in west side story, esp the bit about incorporating more spanish. i wonder what the effect is.

http://famespy.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/rock-of-ages1.jpg

Tony-nominated!

the best show on broadway right now is probably the britishes sex farce about unhappy families/marriages The Norman Conquests, which when seen in full is an all-day affair. this is obv what you should see w/ your mom.

tbh it was pretty fun when i saw it off-broadway! probably better suited to broadway, actually, because it appeals more to tourists/non-trad theater-goers than something with the 'off-broadway' connotation of 'more artsy'. also: scantily clad women and a former american idol contestant. and they let you drink while you watch.

oh wait it's not 'on broadway'. nm.

i still want to see it, but i've already spent money this season on a Steel Panther show (of shame)

"ann liv young's "The Bagwell In Me" is truly incredible. i'm kind of speechless. it's hard to describe or explain just why it is so good. it's a huge leap forward from Snow white. quite possibly a work of genius."

So I went to this last night - just checking, comparing notes before I go any further (and I may need to be drunker than I currently am, even after nearly 24 hours after seeing it -- which is not AT ALL).

Did Ann Liv start her show then stop after five mins, have a RAGING argument with the sound guy (who then left), then demand to see the guy who ran the venue, asking him questions on stuff like MARKETING (getting him to answer with the microphone distorted in a 'chipmunk' sorta mode) and THEN go on to have a discussion with the audience (only 25 of us, she counted 'em) about stuff like what was going to be in the show but that she wouldn't perform, as well as talking about marketing THEN getting onto perform bits of the show (stopping every now and again for a 'soundcheck') but FINALLY getting going, performing what I imagine were scenes from a show we would only ever have in our heads if it were something approaching 'professional', amazingly screaming and hollering through a few of the hits of the pop parade that were distorted to shit on the sound system...totally guerilla-not-giving-a-flying-fuck style before er actually fucking the girl who played George Washington's slave on the show with a strap on (there was a camera guy and a small screen so we all got the angle, I guess we can buy the DVD now).

Did the above (only some of the highlights, but I think I've said enough) also happen in Glasgow?

Anyway: I do care about theatre now :-)

yes!!! i'm so thrilled with this response.

no, none of the argument stuff happened in glasgow just some very minor to and fro with the sound guy about using the wrong effects and it NOT BEING FUCKING LOUD ENOUGH.

re the fucking: the penetration didn't actually happen in glasgow because the venue wouldn't allow it (backstory: the venue is currently under investigation by glasgow city council for having real sex taken place at a gay club night and the council may prosecute) so that set her off on a rant about how she wasn't allowed to do it. so she did it without the penetration describing to us what should actually be happening.

julio the show is genuinely hysterical too, no? i haven't laughed so much in years.

p.s. was there a projection of the ex culture minister chris smith on a screen throughout the show?

but but but, for all that is seems anarchic and out of control she floors you with an image or an idea that is shocking in its directness and beauty. it's breathtakiing at times.

The whole argument was over the not loud enough/wrong effect, as far as I could tell. At first I thought it was acted but no, it was true - I hung around with some people and had a beer as we had to digest what just happened (one of the most likeable aspect of the whole thing) and the girl I chatted to found out about it. This is the aspect of the show that I would have a v hard time in trying to defend, and I wanted to defend ALL OF IT -- be it the accusations of 'no plot'/'indulgence' etc -- there was an abuse of trust here (the sound man apparently worked w/her trying to get it right over the weekend), as I was thinking last night. Nobody is going to die, sure, but still...

It was hilarious -- I think I was laughing way too much right from the word go. Couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. She gave me a hard look to get me to stop at one point but it was a 'controlled' anger, she knows her craft and what she wants out of an audience.

No there was no Chris Smith! Only her on stage live porno made it onto the screen.

I also laughed on the train home because someone was listening to Michael Jackson (two Jackson songs performed in the show). You cannot make this up I tells ya!! xxp = yes, defintely, I should the songs and some of the performance was brilliant, but also much of that got lost, somehow? I wanted to go again tonight, but was too tired... (did it even go ahead?)

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how are the wooster group these days? thinking about seeing their production of la didone at REDCAT later this month, wondering if i should bother?

totally stoked for Stoppard's Rock and Roll this weekend ... anyone have an opinion?

wonderful play, though your cast won't be like the Broadway one

think i might've told this story before on ILX, but oh well...four or five years ago i was working in a massive fuck off rec shop on oxford st when who shld walk in but tom stoppard. he proceeded to ask me a series of fairly oblique questions abt this and that...i can't really remember the convo at all, but i do vividly recall that he suddenly got v v interested when i told him there was a group called tortoise!

Right, so if Stoppard plays a Tortoise track on Desert Island Discs we'll know the source ;-)

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/06/08/theater/theaterspecial/08tony.xlarge10.jpg

^^Broadway demographic circa 2009^^

LOLOLOLOL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Kcj0FSP7g

Joe Turner's Come and Gone, which closes Sunday, is very good. Worst audience ever, though.

somnambulant? vocal? or did you see the Obamas necking?

people talking, cell phones ringing, people TALKING ON THEIR CELL PHONES, numerous late arrivals (before and after intermission), one person walks over a half dozen people to get out of their row then walks back a few minutes later then in the second act walks back out and EXITS THE THEATER VIA THE STREET DOOR BEHIND THE AUDIENCE, old lady returns from the bathroom 10 minutes into second act and slowly proceeds across the rear and side orchestra aisles talking (complaining/apologizing to the usher) IN FULL VOICE THE ENTIRE WAY DESPITE NUMEROUS SSH'S (and one "oh shut the hell up" lol)

Inside baseball, but an interesting study about gender and producing new plays in NY Mag and today's Times -- not the result you might think:

Sands also sent out four previously unseen scripts by prominent female playwrights — Lynn Nottage, Julia Jordan, Tanya Barfield, and Deb Laufer — to artistic directors and literary managers nationwide. Each script was assigned two pen names, like Mary Walker and Michael Walker. The results were surprising: Female readers rated scripts with female pen names 15 percent lower than those with male pen names, while male readers rated the scripts equally. Sands attributes this to women thinking that women's plays "will be less well received."

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/06/25/theater/Night600.jpg

Anyone seeing this?

Director-friend posted on Facebook that she "forsees a production of no exit with ed, farah, and mj."

who's ed?

Ed McMahon.

Purcarete's production of Faust: how amazing does this look? seeing it at the edinburgh international next month:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXU78K6XSwg

100 performers!

Caffe Cino posters, programs from the mid-1960s.

wrong link i hope...

i'm thinking of going to see "The Rivals" in the Abbey Theatre. I am hoping for plenty of "Sirs!" action.