Theater | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: Everyone knows the story of The Golden Girls, even if they haven’t seen much of the hit show. Four older puppets share a house in Miami and navigate sex, money, and aging, getting into all kinds of shenanigans along the way. Wait, that’s not right. Sorry, the original series starred four human women, but That Golden Girls Show! A Puppet Parody does star Rose, Blanche, Dorothy, and Sophia living their lives in puppet form. The show comes to the Byham Theater on Oct. 11 and 12.
5 comments:
My thoughts on this play as a concept is varied. There is something really annoying happening in theatre right now where we are making parodies of old tv shows, ding shows about the lives of an old performer, or remaking movies into musicals. While this is somewhat understandable because we are trying to keep consumers coming to the theatre so that broadway can stay alive, I have trouble dealing with shows like this, and how it is all we are getting from theatre right now. It's so intense and overwhelming that I feel like in 100 years when people are talking about this period of time they're gonna name it something that makes our time is society feel stupid. Either way, this show specifically seems really funny and I definitely can understand why there's a place for it. Art is art, sometimes just to entertain, and it doesn't need to be that deep. I didn't mean to be so negative in this comment. Im sorry it's just disappointing :)
I’m on the edge on this adaptation. As I stated in my comment last week about the article “Hollywood Onstage: Musicals Adapted From Movies”, I tend to be wary of shows adapted from movies or television - especially movies or T. V. shows with such cult followings as “Golden Girls” has - because of audience perception and expectation. I understand that creators want to retain their audience; especially considering the fact that theatre attendance (especially on Broadway) has been declining recently. That being said, it’s not impossible to write good, new content. In a way, adaptations almost feel like cheating; I’m not a writer, of course, but it doesn’t feel at all authentic (mostly because it’s not) to just take another person’s story and, sometimes, even their songs and basically just adapt it for a different medium. I also don’t think that everything under the sun needs the puppet treatment. I understand that puppets aren’t necessarily the most widely used, but they never seem to be used in the right way. Shows like “Avenue Q” and “The Happytime Murders” and, now, this “Golden Girls” adaptation seem to gravitate towards cheap elements such as the shock factor of puppets and the success of their predecessors such as the Muppets and “Sesame Street”.
I am always an advocate for puppets – because I think the extent that puppets in performance art have incredible potential and are an amazing medium for movement and storytelling (but that is another story that is not as relevant to this article) – but this is stretching it. I have to echo what Sierra and Emily mention about how just remaking a popular TV show or movie or other pop culture bit does not seem like art that is worthwhile in my opinion. Sure it looks funny and is probably rather enjoyable for casual fans of the Golden Girls (and might even get people to go to a live performance for the first time because of the topic), but I do not see the artistic and storytelling value in creating pieces like this. The Byham is doing a bunch of shows like this right now – I have seen ads for a Magic School Bus show and a musical about the Office. Doing shows like this (in my opinion) are done to expand and grow the present audience and bring in people that do not usually watch live theatre, and it makes me believe that perhaps the local Pittsburgh theatre scene is worried about their audience base right now
Maybe I am just a grumpy, tired old man, but I think this is great. I do not need theatre that is always there to challenge me and to tell me to change the world I live in. There are times when I just want to see a puppet show of old ladies talking about nonsense. Sometimes I just want to laugh. This world is already so dark and depressing, can we not just have a silly play every once in a while? It is sort of my feeling with what shows we do here in the School of Drama. Why is every play depressing? Why do we always feel the need to comment on the human condition? Can we just do a play that is silly and does not have some sort of deep message about why we are the way we are as humans? We can still be engaged audience members and also members of society and still watch a silly play with no deep meaning.
I am really glad that this is a parody because I'm not sure how successful it would be if it was expected to be the same as the original series. Though I saw my grandparents watching it a few times, I never really watched it so I'm not a fan of the show. I'm sure there are some fans who would really appreciate this depiction of the characters, and others who may see it as a bit of an insult. Either way, I really like this way of revisiting an old show as opposed to doing a TV spin off or recreation. Very rarely are those successful, unfortunately. A sitcom that I watch is Sanford and Son, and I must say, I would love it revisited in puppet form at a theatre. I can just imagine the comedic moments and the laughter coming from the audience off of that one. It would be interesting to see how they translate Sanford's iconic body gestures into puppet form.
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