I was going to link to Encore Theatre Magazine, which has recently started up its weblog after many months of silence, but del.icio.us only lets me link to sites once. So instead you get treated to a fine example of the site’s fantastic ranting. While they do like some things (such as the current NT production of The Seagull) they mainly do an excellent line in outraged fury, such as this paragraph:
The Blue Man Group is a piece of vacuous franchise theatre in which some anonymous drummers get painted blue and play banal rhythms while splashing the audience with paint; the music sounds like some 80s ad-man’s idea of a crazy part-ay, the dance looks like Hot Gossip in macs, and the evening is completely empty — it has to be because this show is being done all over the world in exactly the same way and so can’t connect too much to any audience. It is theatre for people who never go to the theatre, music for people who don’t care about music, and dance for people who don’t understand dance. It has nothing to say about anything; it is not remotely entertaining; it is the wacky act at the Eurovision Song Contest stretched out to fill an evening. If you feel nostalgic for Level 42 you might enjoy it. If you think effort is good enough and volume is its own entertainment, go along. If the very thought of someone with blue make up on their face is sufficient to hold you for over an hour, tickets are available online. Otherwise, if anyone messages a clip from this show to you, they are insulting you. Do not waste your time with the Blue Man Group.
RARRRRRRRR! People caring this much about theatre fires my excitement, which has been waning over the summer. Even if you’re not into theatre it’s worth a read for the passion. Hopefully they can keep it up this time.
Comments
Commenting is disabled on posts once they’re 30 days old.
Dan Hill at 28 Jul 2006, 11:28am. Permalink
That's a fantastic review :)
The only thing good about the Blue Man Group is their inadvertant appearance in 'Arrested Development' when Tobias stalks them for a while as a 'back-up Blue Man'.