THE WORST PALYS YOUVE SEEN
Fri, 26 Apr 2002, 03:30 pmMaria19 posts in thread
THE WORST PALYS YOUVE SEEN
Fri, 26 Apr 2002, 03:30 pmI went and saw an Australian Play Touch Silk at Chester Street Theatre and I must say it is the worst play I have ever seen. one actresss kept forgetting her lines and you could see her searching another was lost in her accent it was terrible to sit through my friends and I had to leave at Inter.
Has any one else ever been to a bad play
Has any one else ever been to a bad play
Re: poor play
Fri, 26 Apr 2002, 11:47 pmEggVillain wrote:
>> it ain't the play that is bad...it is the production that makes it all bad. And this is usually because of bad direction or people who call themselves actors and somehow get away with it.
Sorry, EggVillain, I don't entirely agree. I think you've missed the point of the question.
Yes, there are bad productions of good plays, but there ARE also bad plays. And if the trouble starts with the script or the story concept, even the best production, director and actors probably can't save it.
When I've seen a good play done badly, there is disappointment that it hasn't met my expectations, but sometimes there are mitigating circumstances (ie watching highschool productions that haven't done justice to the play) where I can forgive the faults and still be entertained by the story. And sometimes you can point the finger at a particular actor or directing choice or other element where you say "If only they'd done this...." and it would've been better. But this usually means you have been engaged by the other elements of the production - script, other cast, design... - so you care enough to imagine it they way YOU would have prefered it, and can find enough in the rest of the show for it to be interesting.
Or sometimes, even if a lot of choices just haven't paid off, you can still appreciate the innovation or the risks taken in making those choices - even though the play might not appeal.
But watching good performers struggle with bad material is just excrutiating, because it soon becomes obvious that everyone is wasting their time flogging a dead horse.
The worst play I ever saw was actually written by a relative of mine, and performed at the Young Australia League by an eager group of young hopefuls, who I hope went on to better things. I don't believe the acting or directing was particularly inspired, but it was hard to really tell because the dialogue and characters were so atrocious.
And yet I actually remember with it with some fondness because it WAS really SO bad. I remember thinking "it can't get any worse" and then it DID, repeatedly! After a while I found it quite amusing in a sick humour kind of way, because everyone was loyally treating it so seriously and yet I found it quite laughable.
I know this relative of mine was trying very hard to write a serious drama, and so I found it simultaneously a bit sad as well as ludicrously funny. He was quite an old man at the time, and was simply trying to cram too many serious issues into the one script...it was supposed to be taken seriously but it seemed to me like the worst parody of soap opera.
From memory there was a fellow who was part-aboriginal, and had returned from Vietnam, and was in trouble with the law for stealing, and he had gotten someone underage pregnant, and there was a mixed-race wedding, with the required amount of town racism, but they turned out to be related, and there was an abortion, and someone else got raped, and there was a bashing, a miscarriage, a suicide, a divorce, and they were using drugs, and then he found out he had cancer, and a speech defect, and there was a homosexual encounter, and a murder, but the wrong person was accused, and there was a stalker, and someone became schizophrenic, and alcoholic, paraplegic, and was a greenie trying to save whales.....it was so long ago I don't actually remember the exact issues but I remember making a joke at interval that we haven't seen a car crash or a lesbian nun yet, and we got both during the second act!
I wish I had a copy of this script now, it possibly has good parody potential. But in the context of the serious drama it was trying to be, it really was a BAD play.
Cheers,
Craig
[%sig%]
>> it ain't the play that is bad...it is the production that makes it all bad. And this is usually because of bad direction or people who call themselves actors and somehow get away with it.
Sorry, EggVillain, I don't entirely agree. I think you've missed the point of the question.
Yes, there are bad productions of good plays, but there ARE also bad plays. And if the trouble starts with the script or the story concept, even the best production, director and actors probably can't save it.
When I've seen a good play done badly, there is disappointment that it hasn't met my expectations, but sometimes there are mitigating circumstances (ie watching highschool productions that haven't done justice to the play) where I can forgive the faults and still be entertained by the story. And sometimes you can point the finger at a particular actor or directing choice or other element where you say "If only they'd done this...." and it would've been better. But this usually means you have been engaged by the other elements of the production - script, other cast, design... - so you care enough to imagine it they way YOU would have prefered it, and can find enough in the rest of the show for it to be interesting.
Or sometimes, even if a lot of choices just haven't paid off, you can still appreciate the innovation or the risks taken in making those choices - even though the play might not appeal.
But watching good performers struggle with bad material is just excrutiating, because it soon becomes obvious that everyone is wasting their time flogging a dead horse.
The worst play I ever saw was actually written by a relative of mine, and performed at the Young Australia League by an eager group of young hopefuls, who I hope went on to better things. I don't believe the acting or directing was particularly inspired, but it was hard to really tell because the dialogue and characters were so atrocious.
And yet I actually remember with it with some fondness because it WAS really SO bad. I remember thinking "it can't get any worse" and then it DID, repeatedly! After a while I found it quite amusing in a sick humour kind of way, because everyone was loyally treating it so seriously and yet I found it quite laughable.
I know this relative of mine was trying very hard to write a serious drama, and so I found it simultaneously a bit sad as well as ludicrously funny. He was quite an old man at the time, and was simply trying to cram too many serious issues into the one script...it was supposed to be taken seriously but it seemed to me like the worst parody of soap opera.
From memory there was a fellow who was part-aboriginal, and had returned from Vietnam, and was in trouble with the law for stealing, and he had gotten someone underage pregnant, and there was a mixed-race wedding, with the required amount of town racism, but they turned out to be related, and there was an abortion, and someone else got raped, and there was a bashing, a miscarriage, a suicide, a divorce, and they were using drugs, and then he found out he had cancer, and a speech defect, and there was a homosexual encounter, and a murder, but the wrong person was accused, and there was a stalker, and someone became schizophrenic, and alcoholic, paraplegic, and was a greenie trying to save whales.....it was so long ago I don't actually remember the exact issues but I remember making a joke at interval that we haven't seen a car crash or a lesbian nun yet, and we got both during the second act!
I wish I had a copy of this script now, it possibly has good parody potential. But in the context of the serious drama it was trying to be, it really was a BAD play.
Cheers,
Craig
[%sig%]
- ···
- ···
- ···