Sunday, October 14, 2007
A gay old time sure isn't what it used to be
TheStar.com: "On a summer night 32 years ago, I sat watching The Ritz on Broadway and laughed 'til tears streamed down my face. Earlier this week, I caught the revival of the same play that the Roundabout Theatre is presenting at Studio 54. There were still moments when I laughed uproariously, but more often I sat there merely smiling – and a lot of the time I was thinking, 'What had caused the change? Was it me? The play? The production? Or the 32 years in between?'"
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6 comments:
This article has a lot to do with one of the critiquing issues brought up at the last conservatory hour: Why this play now? And although the director may have realized the faults with this production due to heavy sociatal burdens now placed on the existing themes of the show, he didn't quite compensate for them. The image of gay culture has changed so much over the last 35 years that it seems to me that the director could have given a little more thought to the issue, especially if all the critic could think about during the show was the AIDS epidemic. It just goes to show that one must consider how scripts change over time, and not just expect slapstick comedy in one scene to make up for changed sociatal mores.
This show seems like it might fit into the "have we moved on enough from this tragedy to make it into a comedy?" issue from the article about the 'flood' musical. in this case the issue of AIDS and mobs are too current and scary i guess to be taken lightly yet.
on the other hand i do think that some shows just cant stand the test of time, maybe this is just one of those shows.
Though Richard Ouzounian definitely brings out the point of Why this play now? The way in which an audience perceives a play definitely can change drastically over time. Tragedy can become comedy and vice versa. I would imagine that comedy, of all the emotions, is the most subject to cultural change over even relatively short periods of time like 30 years).
I think that this play is an example of why you would change elements of the original script to get a different point across. Maybe if the director and made choices that would reflect the social changes and different attitudes about homosexuality and the mob, this could have been a great show.
A 32 year difference between the two productions would really affect how material on stage is perceived by the patrons in the audience. Written material, staging, and acting choices are often very time-specific to what is humorous in that period for often very specific demographics. What is considered interesting and humorous today is pushing lines on sex, race, and profanity. These same items were incredibly taboo 32 years ago, unlike today where they are used as a common laugh.
Like everyone else here i guess what I wanted to talk about is the timelessness or rather lack of timelessness in a play. There are some plays which read through generations however, there are others which clearly can look and be for lack of a better term, past their prime. This seems like an example of a play clearly to dated for the world and society which we live in...
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