All 2 entries tagged Play

The puppets, the porn, the bard and his lovers

Had a theatrical rather than an alcoholic weekend for a change, which kicked off on Friday night with a preview of Avenue Q the musical, fresh off Broadway and due to officially open in London at the end of June.

Whereas Sesame Street – the educational series which Avenue Q parodies – teaches children basic life skills such as how to cross the road safely and healthy eating habits, Avenue Q uses a combination of puppets, animation, and live actors to teach somewhat more grown–up children about the fundamentals of life for a 20–something year old living in a less–than–salubrious New York neighbourhood.

Princeton, the main protagonist, is a bright–eyed college graduate who rolls up on Avenue Q eager to make new friends and find his “purpose” in life. Yet as he stands out on the sidewalk, desperately trying to find a vacant apartment that suits his meagre budget, he can’t help but ponder:

What do you do with a BA in English?
What is my life going to be?
Four years of college and plenty of knowledge
Have earned me this useless degree!

The songs themselves are a clue to the somewhat more dubious educational focus of Avenue Q, with titles such as Everyone's A Little Bit Racist, You Can Be As Loud As The Hell You Like When You're Making Love, What Do You Do With A BA In English?, The Internet Is For Porn, If You Were Gay and my personal favourite – The More You Love Someone The More You Want To Kill Them (sung by Japanese expat Christmas Eve)

The teachers for this illuminating journey through the world of unemployment, drunkenness, internet porn, one night stands, anti–political correctness and friendship are a whole host of puppet characters such as Lucy the Slut, Kate Monster, the Bad Idea Bears, Trekkie Monster and Mrs Thistletwat. There are also three characters portrayed by actors, including Gary Coleman, whose apparent celebrity status in the US went largely unrecognised by the British audience.

All in all, this was a fun production – catchy songs, captivating characters and funny situations. I found the “full puppet nudity” and “graphic simulated sex between puppets” of which we had been prewarned ever–so–slightly shocking (seems a little wrong to see what are essentially children's puppets really going for it like that!). Neverthless a hilarious scene – who would have thought that those naughty muppets had it in them?

As a contrast to puppets and porn, on Saturday I went to Stratford–upon–Avon where I saw two RSC productions: Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

More to follow shortly on these 2 plays when not so tired…

: 13 Jun 2006 22:46 |  Tags: Arts London Play Theatre |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Uncle Vanya

Writing about web page http://www.warwickartscentre.co.uk/?page=wac_event_details.html&event_id=2209

Saw this last night with Anna at the Arts Centre and thought it was just fantastic. I didn't know the play at all until about 4 o'clock yesterday when I sat down and read it in Xananas. I thought that since it was going to be in Russian (thankfully with subtitles) it might be wise to at least figure out the characters and basic plot before I went along.

I found it a little slow-going until the interval (Russian seems to take a hell of a lot longer to speak aloud than the English translation would!), but it certainly succeeded in conveying a sense of the languid and suffocating atmosphere of provincial life, redolent with the characters' secret longings, frustrations and dreams never realised.

Both the first and the third act started with lights up in the main auditorium, with the lovelorn cast wandering listlessly onstage, addressing their soliloquies to the audience and gazing back out at us even whilst speaking to each other, suggesting a dissolution of the division between 'us' and 'them'.

Similarly, the acts themselves flowed together in a way that challenged conventional spatial and temporal parameters, as the actors themselves changed the scenes and moved props around. The simplicity of costumes and sparseness of the set emphasised the cast's superb acting, with actors making effective use of the few props on stage and moving the production beyond the original text outline.

For example, at the end of the second act, when her invalid husband forbade Ylena to play the piano in the middle of the night, she retaliated by using a spoon to create a quirky, obstinate little tune on his medicine bottles, laughing softly to herself before knocking them over like a petulent child. I thought this was a nice touch, simultaneously invoking humour, vitality, despair and desperation.

The online Guardian review of the moment when Vanya discovered the doctor kissing Ylena link sums up this moment perfectly, recalling an awkward and painful situation and encapsulating both its comic and tragic elements:

…the moment is not just great – it is perfectly sublime. Entering with a bunch of roses, a gift for his beloved, Sergei Kurishev's gentle giant of a Vanya is so appalled, embarrassed and shamed to discover her in a passionate clinch with Astrov that he becomes rooted to the spot and tries to hide his huge body behind his own small, dripping bouquet.

At the end of the play, Sonya's passionate speech 'We shall rest! We shall rest!' burst forth with desolation, frustration, sadness and rage, nevertheless retaining a grain of dogged stoicism (which I understand is the conventional interpretation of these lines). As the haystacks that had been ominously suspended over the stage for the duration of the play descended, representing a return to the 'normality' of farmwork and provincial life, we realise that she and Vanya will – and must – continue to endure the unexplained agony of their fate.

: 11 Jun 2005 14:23 |  Tags: Arts Literature Play Uncle Vanya |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem