Bad theater experiences

blpurdom at yahoo.com blpurdom at yahoo.com
Wed Aug 1 13:48:14 UTC 2001


--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., hamster8 at h... wrote:
 I saw a God-awful 
> play at the National in London called 'The Invention of Love.'  It 
> was about A.E Hausman (sp?) who penned 'A Shropshire Lad' and other 
> Vogon-esque poetry.  It was the most boring piece of plotless 
drivel 
> I have ever had to sit through.

Vogon-esque!  Love it, Al!  I'd forgotten that that's the most 
succinct way to describe REALLY bad poetry.
 
> Well, *I* slept through the entire blooming play.  I couldn't walk 
> out, mainly because my parents had the car, I didn't have a driving 
> licence, and they had brought me in a rather desperate attempt to 
> culture me, or something of that ilk - at the least to wean me off 
> the Simpsons.  So I've never actually walked out on a play.

Well, I am a survivor of the biggest debacle in Philadelphia music 
history.  I attended a concert version of Peleas et Melisande (an 
opera) with my (future) husband and (future) in-laws years ago.  It 
was part of the Philadelphia Orchestra's subscription series, or we 
wouldn't have gone.  Now, I have nothing against concert versions of 
operas.  I've performed in concert versions of Acis and Galatea and 
Dido and Aeneas (the synopses were in the program and they are sung 
in English). But operas are generally meant to be performed by people 
ACTING the parts, not just singing them, and the blocking and 
costumes and sets add to the fleshing-out of the story and the 
audience's enjoyment.

This thing was just four soloists who sang all the parts standing at 
the front of the stage with the orchestra behind them.  The real 
killer was when the head of the orchestra board came out on stage at 
the beginning of each act and read a synopsis of the action we WOULD 
have seen if they'd staged it properly (but then, that would be for 
the opera company to do, not the orchestra).  This guy would drone on 
for HALF AN HOUR OR MORE.  The music was also not terrifically 
compelling--kind of mushy and indistinct.  The audience was leaving 
in droves.  

By the end of the concert, we were four out of about twenty people in 
the entire Academy of Music, which is a huge hall (my future father-
in-law wanted us to stay on principle).  We still think the orchestra 
should have given us I SURVIVED PELEAS ET MELISANDE T-shirts.  This 
event is legendary now (but most of the people I know who were there 
are shocked that we stayed). 

--Barb






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