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Thursday, November 24, 2022
Local director adapts musical to point up ‘Horrors’ of Bay Area gentrification
www.mercurynews.com: TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, a place where Lo serves multiple roles as a staff member, is readying itself to display that vision through the musical “Little Shop of Horrors,” often set in the grimy and grizzled world of New York City’s Skid Row.
1. This sounds like a great setting for Little Shop. I assume there won’t be an ability to modify lyrics to songs like Skid Row but the visual effect will still be there. I will say that I do not find this to be a particularly inventive move. I think we have been setting shows in alternate cultures, time periods, and age groups in order to shed light on a particular theme or societal issue for a very long time. Perhaps this show’s casting makes it more exciting, but I hope the changes go further than casting and scenery. I think adaptations that take the exact same plot, but place it somewhere new or do it with different bodies is slightly outdated today. I want to see new plays and musicals, or for us to select works that aren’t often produced rather than shuffle out the most frequently done shows with a new layer of paint. Those kinds of changes can only go so far.
I feel like this is actually a smart choice, not only is Little Shop a good musical, but they are also setting it in San Francisco’s Chinatown as a way to make commentary on the gentrification that is happening there. Hopefully this decision will bring in more of the locals to come see the production. Also, yay Phil Wong as Seymour. He’s a true staple of Bay Area theatre. I’m also curious to see how this production will be received by the community, and also if Theatre Works Silicon Valley will do any community performances. I think this last bit is important, because as theatre if you are going to do shows commenting on gentrification but not make your tickets accessible in cost, then you’ve completely missed the point of the work that you are doing. I spent seven months working for ACT and living in downtown SF, and this last bit was one of the major things that I saw. ACT was striving towards bringing in more of the local community, but they were missing the mark because not only were their ticket prices not accessible, but they wouldn’t consistently hire actors from the local community. This was something that was brought to their attention, and prior to Covid they were working on that, but I’m uncertain how much things have changed since then.
2 comments:
1. This sounds like a great setting for Little Shop. I assume there won’t be an ability to modify lyrics to songs like Skid Row but the visual effect will still be there. I will say that I do not find this to be a particularly inventive move. I think we have been setting shows in alternate cultures, time periods, and age groups in order to shed light on a particular theme or societal issue for a very long time. Perhaps this show’s casting makes it more exciting, but I hope the changes go further than casting and scenery. I think adaptations that take the exact same plot, but place it somewhere new or do it with different bodies is slightly outdated today. I want to see new plays and musicals, or for us to select works that aren’t often produced rather than shuffle out the most frequently done shows with a new layer of paint. Those kinds of changes can only go so far.
I feel like this is actually a smart choice, not only is Little Shop a good musical, but they are also setting it in San Francisco’s Chinatown as a way to make commentary on the gentrification that is happening there. Hopefully this decision will bring in more of the locals to come see the production. Also, yay Phil Wong as Seymour. He’s a true staple of Bay Area theatre. I’m also curious to see how this production will be received by the community, and also if Theatre Works Silicon Valley will do any community performances. I think this last bit is important, because as theatre if you are going to do shows commenting on gentrification but not make your tickets accessible in cost, then you’ve completely missed the point of the work that you are doing. I spent seven months working for ACT and living in downtown SF, and this last bit was one of the major things that I saw. ACT was striving towards bringing in more of the local community, but they were missing the mark because not only were their ticket prices not accessible, but they wouldn’t consistently hire actors from the local community. This was something that was brought to their attention, and prior to Covid they were working on that, but I’m uncertain how much things have changed since then.
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