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revisit of interval walkouts

Tue, 21 Aug 2001, 04:00 pm
Linda5 posts in thread
A good friend of mine has directed "Trainspotting" in Brisbane at the New Farm Nash (Balfour st) and has received some great reviews. (it's still running til Sep 1 if you're anywhere near)

However it's not a pleasant play, nor an entertaining one - rather it's very much on the side of shocking, taking you out of the comfort zone , etc.

Here's a snippet from an email that Cam sent me (reproduced with permission)

"Trainspotting has been the most awesome experience. My best play so far, by a long way. I have never witnessed audiences so absorbed & silent. Never a movement from them. Even when the lights go up at interval they are stuck, stunned for a few minutes before anyone talks. Most performances one or 2 walk out at interval, obviously not their scene, or just too close to the bone, which is a good thing. It's not meant to be a happy diversion, it's meant to be confronting. If people can't handle it, seeya later. Everyone else raves about it."

thought it was so appropriate to the old kerfuffle that i had to include it. COMMENTS?

Linda

RE: revisit of interval walkouts

Tue, 21 Aug 2001, 07:33 pm
Walter Plinge
Indeed- with a play of the nature of Trainspotting, and perhaps there were similar instances in the recent "Shopping and F***ing", a swift departure by some audience members is to be expected. But is this merely borne from a reaction to a play that perhaps thrives on shock for shock's sake?

Flip of the coin f'rinstance; we had walkouts in a production of Stephen Sondheim's "Follies" aeons ago- mainly because the publicity showed the original Broadway icon of the "showgirl", and when the audience was confronted by mid-life crises set to music, as opposed to the T*ts, Taps, Tenors and Teeth that the poster inferred would be involved, people left in rows! We used to wave them goodbye at interval....

Eliot

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