Last night, I saw some really bad theatre. I mean, like, really, really, bad. How bad, you ask? Here’s my five-word review:
For god’s sake, just die.
It wasn’t the actors’ fault–not really. Well, except for this one girl who had no idea what she was saying. From lights-up to the far-too-late blackout at the end of the show, words came spilling out of her mouth, unadorned with inflection or rhythm or phrasing or anything to help me understand what the fuck she was talking about. The two other actors, though, did just fine.
No, the problem was the play. It doesn’t need to be performed anymore. Note to art-theatre types: French existentialism belongs in high school classrooms where angsty teens can appreciate it. Don’t put that shit on stage and expect me to sit through an hour and a half of clunky, pretentious translation. I did it last night, but only because there was no intermission. I’ve left mid-show before, though, and I’m willing to do it again.
I only wish I’d been watching The Diary of Anne Frank so I could’ve enacted the apocryphal story of one theatregoer’s rage during an inept production. Having reached his breaking point, so the story goes, the audience member at last stood up and screamed, “She’s in the attic!”
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