THE WORST PALYS YOUVE SEEN

I 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

Ok why say it is the worst play ever as the play is the play...that is what it is....Now on the other hand the production is the whole thing so if you are going to classify anything as really bad...say Gee that production of Shakespeare's, Othello was the worst I have ever seen.

As the play (Othello) it self is not bad...as a matter of fact it is quite good.

So I leave you all with these words...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.

There are two productions I can account for:

The Tempest performed at the Malthouse Theatre in 1997. The opening noise was so loud you couldn't hear the actors, there was no direction and the lighting looked like it had used every lantern they could think of, for just 3 basic stage washes.

The Rover performed by MTC at the Playhouse, Victorian Arts Centre.
The production was long and drawn out, actors couldn't decide what accent they might use for (one actor went through 4) and the execution scene went for 15 mins. One member of the audience yelled " just kill him so we can go home" this got the biggest applause for the night.

Other Mentionables:

Chess the musical at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne. Where do you start.

Grease the Megamusical - the touring tent version. The actors performed like they should be somewhere else. One hometown principal milked the audience so much, the rest of the cast looked bored as!!

Certifed Male: tired and dated gags. Poor sound.

What a very aussie topic.

Pass.

Alan!

EggVillain 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

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One of that ilk was entered in the ITA State (One Act) Drama Festival a few years ago, but it crammed the lot into 45 minutes! The bit I remember is the blue flashing light on the police car.
Why _will_ local amateur playwrights insist on directing their own plays? Possibly to ensure that not one precious word is cut I suspect!

But my worst ever play was a professional production of a locally written (Perth) play, some years ago - can't remember the name (think I've blocked it out) - had to to with Local Government & involved, not to their credit, a number of well known Perth actors. It was a baseline reference point around the traps for quite some time. Have to see if I can find the programme for the details.

BarbZ

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I'd just like to qualify a statement I made above, about there being "mitigating circumstances" where you can forgive faults and still be entertained by a bad play.

I cited as an example "highschool productions that haven't done justice to the play". It was brought to my attention (and rightly so), that this appears that I am knocking highschool productions, or that by citing them as my only example I am implying that they will automatically be under par.

I probably would've been more accurate to have said "primary school productions..." (or I could have just as easily said "professional improvised comedy")...really, I was just fishing for an example where the quality of the play or the script is not as important as witnessing the event being performed.


I didn't mean to get into the "highschool/amateur/professional" debate - it's been well discussed that these are not terms that can correlate to definitions of quality.
The friend who pointed this out believes that "if a play is done well, then it is done well." Highschools and amateur groups (and professional companies) shouldn't need to be forgiven for the quality of their work. Hopefully, they are producing good work to the best of their ability.

But my point was that I can actually sometimes be amused by bad work. Perhaps that's just my perverse sense of humour.


Cheers
Craig

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I don't think it was in the Festival???
It was done at Melville and was a "trifle odd". It was written by one of our own members.

Yep .. ITA Drama Festival held at Stirling Theatre; can't recall year or name of play, or even who did it without searching out the programme!
Locally written, full 45 minutes long, covered the entire gamut of family traumas & the blue flashing police car light came at/near the end I think .. still have a mental picture of it on the Stirling stage.

BarbZ

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My vote goes with barb on this one, the play about local government the nmae of which I can't remember was certainly bad. I do remember it was on at the regal for a very brief stint and starred Barrie Barkla .

Was the play you are thinking of called "Citizen of the Year"? I seem to recall that copped a lot of flac, written by a local political figure.


Cheers
Craig (CitWA)

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Oh god .. It's all coming back!!
Didn't Barrie drop his daks?!!?
No wonder my mind went into selective amnesia!

BarbZ

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"The Audition" at the Bunbury festival a few years back. A set of auditions with the same person doing a variety acts. Singing,dancing, monologues, and just when you thought there was nothing else to do a WHEELCHAIR MONOLOGUE. You could hear the seats creaking from all the anal palpitations !

I would have given five stars for this but you reminded me of one of my worst ever theatre experiences.

;-)

Cheers
Grant

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I'm not sure what the worst 'play' I've seen is, but the worst PALYS was certainly the royal palace in Den Hague, Holland. I wouldn't recommend it.

Actually, I would name the worst play I've seen, but unfortunately I was in it, so I don't think it counts,

Craig Edwards

I had friends walk out on a Bell Shakespeare once. I think it was one of the Henrys.

It wasn't the acting so much as the loudness they couldn't take.

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I've been holding off on this one but I can't resist.

Whilst the word "worst" may be a tad mean, the funniest expereince I've had in a theatre (for all the wrong reasons) was a production of "Waiting for Lefty" that was entered into a one-act festival a while back. I've never stifled so many giggles in the space of an hour before or since. Everything from the acting to the staging to the direction was unintentionally comic. Even the adjudicator had some trouble giving a positive spin on it, summarising the production as "well-intentioned". At which point I left the auditorium to run outside and howl with laughter.

El

I do hope there is not an element of stones and glass houses about all this!!
I don't know about plays but the worst production I ever saw was Desert Song in Fremantle a few years ago. You could actually see the fans waving the curtains for the desert breeze.

The worst play ever was a play I did in Woking, England. It was a youth theatre interpretation of "Kes" (A Kestrel for a knave). I pleaded with my loved ones not to come however bribary eluded them and they paid dearly for their mistake.
WARNING: If this play is encountered, do not try to conquer, leave it in the bloody book where it belongs to torch the enthusiasm of unsuspecting high school students who have teachers with a sick sense of humour