Saturday, October 01, 2011
Godspell - Without the strength of its music, Godspell is just a tired old show.
Pittsburgh City Paper: Let me put it this way: Godspell, now playing at South Park Theatre, has a wonderful cast. The performers in this mostly-female production are funny, sharp and physically agile. They improvise effortlessly, and they work well together, playing word games and pantomiming scenes with energy and zest. They even dance like they mean it. Phase 3 Productions knows how to pick a good ensemble, and if this cast ever reunites for a Sarah Ruhl play, call me up.
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After two articles almost in a row I find myself wanting to hunt down the theatre critics at the Pittsburgh City Paper and beat them alternately with copies Brecht's "The Popular & the Realistic" and Stephen Greenblatt's "Will in the World."
I understand that there is more theatre and Art out there than one person can hope to comprehend, much less have a comprehensive opinion about. But no one at the Pgh City Paper seems to understand that. If I didn't know any better, I'd postulate the editors at PCP save "Theatre Reviewer" as a punishment for those reporters who piss them off; and it shows.
The actual review of the PRODUCTION boils down to, "I'm pissed I had to drive out to South Park to see a show I don't understand/care for." Isenberg has no opinion about the show, he just doesn't like "Godspell." That's fine; but don't punish South Park Theatre for that.
God forfend Robert Isenberg ever have to sit through a production of any musical written before 1980, he might fall asleep and then have to reprint this review; using Find/Replace : Godspell/Name-of-Reviewed-Production so he can pretend he actually gives a shyte about what he does for a living.
Good acting is essential to any production. It doesn't matter how masterful the lights and the set are, or how great the directing is, with poor acting nothing good can come of the production, but I have also seen shows with brilliant acting and bad designs, directing, or technical work that bring down the production.
From the mouth of a cynic: I find that most theatre I have seen in the past three years has been bad. Not always because of the design, or bad acting, but a loss in the cohesiveness. It seems that it takes something truly magical to bring all elements of the show together to form a great piece of theatre. Unfortunately we are a segregated business. The technical side doesn’t interact with the artistic side as often as they should. This causes a divide that is clearly visible on stage. Bad acting is just the tip of the iceberg.
A musical needs music, and music that has strength, I hope we all know thats a given. This review pretty much tells me that the critic only cared about the music, and that if the music was great he might not have cared what else is happening because the acting would have supported it. A production should be looked at a whole, technically and artistically, as Taylor pointed out. It would have been nice if the critic commented more on the production as a whole to tell if the production would have been as much of a flop as stated because of the lack of music.
A musical needs music, and music that has strength, I hope we all know thats a given. This review pretty much tells me that the critic only cared about the music, and that if the music was great he might not have cared what else is happening because the acting would have supported it. A production should be looked at a whole, technically and artistically, as Taylor pointed out. It would have been nice if the critic commented more on the production as a whole to tell if the production would have been as much of a flop as stated because of the lack of music.
Okay bitter news writer, you have a point. There are shows that rely on their musical quality to carry the story along, but the acting needs to be just as powerful to keep the story believable. However, there's a difference between disliking a show and disliking a theater company for doing said show that you dislike. A professional writer should know the difference. His extremely pessimistically slanted opinion of the show shouldn't stop anyone from "schlepping themselves to South Park" to support a local theater house.
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