Theatre Work On Sale

See this as a review.

‘Idyllic Lives’

You can walk out of a show not liking how it happened, ‘the structure’, but you can fall in love with so many aspects.

The wonderful dancers that move so well they make your muscle orgasm, no, truly my muscles still have a shaking spasm for how well the performers could move.

The design, oh, what a design it was, like sex for the eyes, not everyone loves sex, so replace sex with whatever you desire and be charmed by that image, yes, that’s the stage design.

The music, I suddenly wished the live musicians were the show but I understand how without bodies dancing, the music would have been useless.

The work as beautiful as I have described it lacked a certain structure. In the world of comedians, its something they dub “Callback” the work began a certain way, a very beautiful way I might add, it lied to me really, it drew me in with the opening, dancers rolling like hay on stage but so hypnotic, I was caught in their web but after that it was filled with “moments” rather than a line structure, I was left saying ‘Oh wow that piece is nice’

Yes, it didn’t really connect together, the movements/dance although very wonderful there didn’t connect to the concept of the work, there were so many movements but they didn’t feedback to the concept at all, I felt again I was left watching how these performers could move wonderfully but not necessarily how they are creating a working narrative.

I want to defend it and say perhaps if I was Chinese, I would have gotten it more, but the audience around me although enjoyed it, I felt they too sensed the disconnect.

Can I go back to talk about the design? I get jealous, perhaps it’s because I hardly get to work with designers on my works. The design was something to feast your eyes on, it wasn’t like the best stuff in the world but I envisioned so many ways it could have been utilized, I felt all types of emotions.

Sand falling from the sky, something I’ve seen before, but totally worth re-seeing, animation, it could have been used more, it really could have. Bamboo sticks, OMG, they used those sticks for just a short moment but I screamed no, you are using them wrong, bring them back here in this moment, so it connects with what you did earlier.

I walked out content, I walked out understanding that we create differently, we work in certain ways, while some of us work in imagery others work in narrative, I am the latter, I want to connect my work to a certain line that when it ends you understand how it began even more.

I walked out wanting to create again, to build that connecting story, now I wish I could steal those performers.

What work have you seen and connected with lately or disconnected?