(no subject)
I'm going through one of those periods when I'm almost afraid to write a proper to-do list because I think it would terrify me too much which is unhelpful in many ways not least that it's giving me this nagging feeling that I've already forgotten something.
It's possible that this feeling is just what we call "October" or "Half Term" or "oh god why is it dark at 5pm". Also I still have a cough and I HATE IT *scowls* I think I will be calling my Doctor on Thursday if there still isn't any improvement though IDK what I'm expecting them to say other than "it's a cough, it'll go away eventually".
Right. Review time. At least I'm only going back 4 months with this one *rolls eyes at self*
Mr Burns @ Almeida Theatre
Having read reviews and social media reaction to Mr Burns this was definitely a Marmite play! And I sort of do see why a bit because it does centre around an episode of The Simpsons and if you don't watch The Simpsons maybe it would have made less sense?
Except that's not what I think at all. I think people went to this play wanting to hate it and sure they wouldn't understand it- we lost a good quarter of the people in my row after the first act and they missed out on a real treat because the play builds on itself to something beautiful and whilst, yes, I knew exactly the episode they were talking about I think I'd have loved it just as much if they'd invented a new show entirely!
Because it wasn't about The Simpsons it was about storytelling and the way humans cling to stories and the way they develop and change over time and how myths and legends are born and it was probably the best thing I've seen all year particularly if you take into account the number of times my mind has wandered back to it.
The first act is in darkness- there's a fire lit in the centre of the stage and a small group of survivors (from some never quite explained disaster that has pushed them into an apocalyptic dystopia) are clustered around it telling stories and this group are trying to remember exactly what happens in the Simpsons episode Cape Feare. And it's brilliantly recognisable as they get lines mixed up and muddled and as an outsider is gradually brought into the group and parts of their own stories leak out and there's this awful section where they read lists of names because they each have a list of people they're looking for and there are rules about how many people you can ask about. So it's memory and huddling round a fire and finding ways to share.
Then by act two the group have become a theatre troop and the remembered episode of the Simpsons has become like a play they're putting on and there are rival groups and they buy lines of episodes from those who remember them. It's like everything you've ever read about travelling theatre groups in the past and the way they pick up news and change the stories they're telling. Plus they invent adverts and there's this strange feeling that maybe these entirely new ideas might be better but the old episodes are familiar- reminders of a world that's gone and so they're tense with each other and snappy but they know these old stories can literally be used to feed themselves.
Then in act three suddenly there's a set and strange music and weird kabuki like costumes and we're hundreds of years into the future and this Simpsons episode has been transformed into something like an opera with Mr Burns as an all powerful evil character and the Simpsons all being killed and the "real" apocalyptic history has become the setting for the story.
Oh it's ridiculous to try and explain it because it was spectacularly surreal to see! But it was fanfiction! I think the creative team would probably talk about folktales and myths and communal storytelling but it was fanfiction- a set of characters taken and stories told with them that are familiar but which take from other sources and from the real world. A strange, dark AU version of the Simpsons but one which reflected the world it was being told in.
It made me want to know whether any Shakespeare plays existed in that world, or other TV shows, it made me seriously think about which stories will become legends in the future- classics that slip away from their original sources till they seem timeless (because Dracula? Frankenstein? even Sherlock Holmes is going that way at an alarming rate!)
And people who left after the first act, I think miffed that it was so dark that they couldn't really see anything, absolutely missed the whole point of the play.
I really want to see it again, and I do mean see not read, but I fear I never will!
I caught the Cape Feare episode the other day and it was really weird watching it remembering the play <3 it's an awesome episode anyway though what withy the whole HMS Pinafore section at the end :D
It's possible that this feeling is just what we call "October" or "Half Term" or "oh god why is it dark at 5pm". Also I still have a cough and I HATE IT *scowls* I think I will be calling my Doctor on Thursday if there still isn't any improvement though IDK what I'm expecting them to say other than "it's a cough, it'll go away eventually".
Right. Review time. At least I'm only going back 4 months with this one *rolls eyes at self*
Mr Burns @ Almeida Theatre
Having read reviews and social media reaction to Mr Burns this was definitely a Marmite play! And I sort of do see why a bit because it does centre around an episode of The Simpsons and if you don't watch The Simpsons maybe it would have made less sense?
Except that's not what I think at all. I think people went to this play wanting to hate it and sure they wouldn't understand it- we lost a good quarter of the people in my row after the first act and they missed out on a real treat because the play builds on itself to something beautiful and whilst, yes, I knew exactly the episode they were talking about I think I'd have loved it just as much if they'd invented a new show entirely!
Because it wasn't about The Simpsons it was about storytelling and the way humans cling to stories and the way they develop and change over time and how myths and legends are born and it was probably the best thing I've seen all year particularly if you take into account the number of times my mind has wandered back to it.
The first act is in darkness- there's a fire lit in the centre of the stage and a small group of survivors (from some never quite explained disaster that has pushed them into an apocalyptic dystopia) are clustered around it telling stories and this group are trying to remember exactly what happens in the Simpsons episode Cape Feare. And it's brilliantly recognisable as they get lines mixed up and muddled and as an outsider is gradually brought into the group and parts of their own stories leak out and there's this awful section where they read lists of names because they each have a list of people they're looking for and there are rules about how many people you can ask about. So it's memory and huddling round a fire and finding ways to share.
Then by act two the group have become a theatre troop and the remembered episode of the Simpsons has become like a play they're putting on and there are rival groups and they buy lines of episodes from those who remember them. It's like everything you've ever read about travelling theatre groups in the past and the way they pick up news and change the stories they're telling. Plus they invent adverts and there's this strange feeling that maybe these entirely new ideas might be better but the old episodes are familiar- reminders of a world that's gone and so they're tense with each other and snappy but they know these old stories can literally be used to feed themselves.
Then in act three suddenly there's a set and strange music and weird kabuki like costumes and we're hundreds of years into the future and this Simpsons episode has been transformed into something like an opera with Mr Burns as an all powerful evil character and the Simpsons all being killed and the "real" apocalyptic history has become the setting for the story.
Oh it's ridiculous to try and explain it because it was spectacularly surreal to see! But it was fanfiction! I think the creative team would probably talk about folktales and myths and communal storytelling but it was fanfiction- a set of characters taken and stories told with them that are familiar but which take from other sources and from the real world. A strange, dark AU version of the Simpsons but one which reflected the world it was being told in.
It made me want to know whether any Shakespeare plays existed in that world, or other TV shows, it made me seriously think about which stories will become legends in the future- classics that slip away from their original sources till they seem timeless (because Dracula? Frankenstein? even Sherlock Holmes is going that way at an alarming rate!)
And people who left after the first act, I think miffed that it was so dark that they couldn't really see anything, absolutely missed the whole point of the play.
I really want to see it again, and I do mean see not read, but I fear I never will!
I caught the Cape Feare episode the other day and it was really weird watching it remembering the play <3 it's an awesome episode anyway though what withy the whole HMS Pinafore section at the end :D