Results tagged “les freres corbusier” from Drama Queen

This week I'm macking on: The return of the rock-star president. And no, not that one. 

Ok, screw it, I'm just going to say this quickly and get it out of the way. Les Freres Corbusier is re-mounting their emo-musical-light-show-fanboy-concert Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson in May as part of the Public Theater's Public LAB season. Even better, tickets will be $10. I hope they sell CDs, and I hope producers here in Philly go see it and bring it home for me, and since I'm starting to feel like LFC's very own Mel, that's all I'm going to say on the subject. For now.

And p.s., enough with the Aretha-dissing. On a bad day, like, say, Tuesday, she still sounds better than anyone I know, and she damn sure dresses better. No one other than the first lady of soul should have been up on that balcony belting out a patriotic tune for Mr. President, and I, for one, am glad she's still around to do it.

Everyone's a Critic will continue its important work later today, but in the meantime, an interesting, blog-worthy dustup flared between Philadelphia's Wilma Theater, Sarah Ruhl's agent and the Broad Street Review (BSR), an online publication covering the city's arts and culture.

The Wilma hosted an open reading of a "surprise play," which turned out to be Ruhl's newest, In the Next Room. Several critics attended, and one, Jim Rutter, wrote what I thought was an insightful review, published by the BSR. And therein lies the rub. The Wilma claims the work is unfinished and thus shouldn't be subject to review, but the question is, if a theater promotes a reading as a newsworthy event--and certainly sending out a press release about a "surprise" by a major playwright would make it so--then isn't it a journalist's responsibility to report on that surprise? Perhaps a review is the wrong approach, but surely no one can be shocked by some aspect of the evening showing up in print or online, as Rutter and BSR publisher Dan Rottenberg note in their chain of correspondence. And considering that--Hello!--the play is all about the history of the vibrator, well, who didn't think it would generate a (cue music) throbbing, pulsing, writhing storm of controversy and attention?

It all brings me back to a discussion I had here with The Critical Condition's Mark Blankenship about my call for a review of Les Freres Corbusier's Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). (I know, I know, I promised I was done talking about it, but I can't stop myself!) Mark's position was similar to that of Wilma Artistic Director Blanka Zizka: if a work isn't ready for the public feeding frenzy that sometimes accompanies a review, it shouldn't be reviewed. In DDR's case, I believed (and still do) that if the public is being charged to attend the event, and it's receiving a full-fledged production--I'd say 50 dancers, a crazy Thunderdome set, and a soap-opera-starring leading man qualify it as such--then it's a journalist's duty to inform the theater-loving public about what transpired onstage. In the Wilma's case, I think it's a trickier call, since a staged reading makes no claims about being a fully-realized work. But again, if it's promoted as a newsworthy event, the argument could be made that it ought to covered as one. Additionally, since, as Rutter points out, "news" can be broken at any time by anyone with a Blackberry and an opinion, is it even reasonable for a playwright or theater to assume they can close the floodgates of public opinion when they're the ones who have opened them in the first place?

What I want to know is why--despite the fact that the show is sold out for the rest of its run--there are no reviews anywhere (New York: step up your game ASAP) except this sort of breathless and kind of confused one on Controlgeek, a blog about theater technology? Just asking. I mean, if people were wondering why theater criticism seems increasingly irrelevant, I dunno, I'd say the entire print media and internet dropping the ball on this one is probably a pretty good example. 

(Below: Dance Dance star Van Hansis, whom you might--or might not--know better as Luke of As the World Turns' Luke and Noah, and whose first kiss garnered for the soap a positively foamy million-and-a-half hits on YouTube.)

Puffy previews are great for getting the word out, and there were a couple of those (here and here), but when the rubber hit the road, you'd think there'd at least be some smoke, or skid marks left behind, or at the very least an acrid odor, not just, you know, an empty can of Bud tossed out the back window (beer, by the way, is free during performances). Maybe there was some "no critics allowed" thing going on that I'm not aware of, and if so, well okay, maybe that would explain the lack of reviews, but certainly not the lack of "Les Freres Corbusier Ban Critics" stories. I'm just hoping the deficit has a real explanation and it isn't that everyone was so busy running from A Christmas Carol to Radio City Music Hall that they missed out on all that free beer and those half-naked actors (their advertising, not mine) over at the Ohio Theatre.

UPDATE: Thanks to Liz Gorinsky for pointing me to her review of the show, which Google somehow missed. A great example of why long reviews were so much fun to write, back in the days when they used to exist, and of the web's usefulness in filling in the information gap when the official channels are closed.

It's crunch time, with a feature in the works and a ton of reviews to pound through before I leave for vacation with my family. To Disneyworld. But that's a discussion for another time.

As far as I'm concerned, I think the team's pyrotechnic extravaganzas and pop culture excavations represent nothing less than the bright, smart future of the American musical. If you, like me, probably won't get to New York this month, no worries. Here's what's up next for the company, and happily, it's a packed dance dance card. 

In any case, if you happen to see the Dance Dance Revolution, please leave a comment here and let me know if your experience was anything close to the thrill-ride I imagine.

This week I'm hating on: The paucity of decent Jewish holiday music. Jews get that irritating Adam Sandler song, an album by the serious Baron Cohen, and the broken promise of an Amy Winehouse/Mark Ronson Chanukah album. 

Meanwhile, just this year alone, Christians get Motorhead's Lemmy, rapper Jim Jones, with his second holiday entry (and p.s., he also produced this way below the radar musical/vanity project last month), Elvis, the Flaming Lips, and Kristin Chenoweth, among others. Well here's what you get from me in return, you holiday chazzers, for hogging all the good stuff: 12 minutes of an uninterrupted Enya Christmas. Feel free to regift.

It's been a heckuva week, but you've done a heckuva job, brownies. Everyone, and by everyone, I mean even Fox News and Glenn Beck, is feeling cautiously optimistic about the nation's future. (But not Rush Limbaugh, who probably doesn't feel much besides outrage and cravings anyway; believe me, it takes one to know one.)

I'm not talking about Songs for a New World-ish '70s throwback musicals, either. These are contemporary, fun shows that embrace camp, kitsch (yeah, I know, I was just ranting about kitsch yesterday, but this is different), and most of all, the idea that the fraught aughts are the best time to offer audiences a plain old good time. An indie theater company can't touch The Mikado, but give them A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant or Bat Boy, and you've got the makings of a great night out without bloat or baggage. Perfect for a regional theater scene like Philly's that has approximately a zillion nascent, ambitious young companies looking to make their mark in an increasingly competitive market.

At this point, Pop culture is so pop that VH1 is already loving up the naughty aughties while we're still waist deep in their muck, and FakeSarahPalin has 4,263 followers on Twitter (Yes, I'm one of them). With troupes like Les Freres Corbusier eliding easily between Schoolhouse Rock and Ibsen, it ain't enough anymore to brush up your Shakespeare. You've gotta watch New York brush up on hers as well. Or not. But still, you never know.

So hallelujah that playwrights like Tom Stoppard are there to worry about the big stuff, to school us on Havel and Housman, and that theater critics are, for the most part, thrilled to have such a deep well from which to draw. But considering the heaping helping of Pink Floyd in his latest work, it seems even Stoppard's been dipping into the shallow end of the waterhole lately. 

Though Blankenship--kicking back and mixing up his arts coverage with "Clay is gay" stories--may not save the world, he just might help save informed, professional criticism from extinction by expanding its reach outside the realm of a handful of subscribers and niche enthusiasts. And by "save it," I mean, "make a video for his Silence of the Lambs rap." Hey, whatever works.

Below: the meta-moment of the pop culture year. So far.