Sunday, Part 1: Tedious Muni Theatre
Jul. 21st, 2008 03:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsOmaha had snagged as part of a fundraiser tickets to a local very tiny (less than a hundred seats) municipal theater event being put on at a local winery. I've been to the E. B. Foote winery before and sampled their products, and found them to be pretty good.
That's can't be said of the municipal theater group. I don't mean to dismiss the group itself, they're all well-meaning locals obviously having a lot of fun, and so were members of the audience, but the play itself was mostly tedium.
The play was entitled 'Coriander,' and was a rather spirited and silly attempt to mash together a Greek play, some rather ordinary but well-considered ideas about free will, and our local politics about the replacement of one of the two freeways that plunge through our fair city.
The play did a very good job of lampooning our local politicians, for whom, as one put it, 'process in the product.' Reaching a decision is not the objective of our city council: justifying their existence by pulling ever-thinner reasons to keep meeting out of thin air seems to be. Our political correctness was on full display, when the council reached a consenus that "men, women, those who haven't quite decided or who are still somewhere in between, aggrieved apes and any other higher-order mammmals who can communicate their needs," may come before the council. This being a joke Greek play, there is a scene in a temple and one of the council members squeaks, "Are there gods here yet? Do I have to think pure thoughts now?" The writer was a punster of the first order, eliciting groans and laughs from the audience, but he belabored his thoughtful points badly.
The actors were pretty good, but the guy who played Hades, er, "Shades," was a bit off.
"Yes, oh blunt instrument of the people's confused will?"
The writer managed to work in the name of the winery into his play. Which was mostly the point: there were wine tastings before, at the intermission, and after the play, showing off six of their wines. The best was their Cabernet, sweet and refreshing and their Perfect a Trois, thick and delicious. The Merlot by itself was a bit metallic, and the Syrah suffered from being, well, boring. I might pick up a little of the Perfect a Trois, just to enjoy, but it's more of an Autumn wine.
Given the weather around here, it might be time to pick it up now. Not a tragic way to spend the afternoon, but I'd like a less obvious excuse to enjoy good wines.
That's can't be said of the municipal theater group. I don't mean to dismiss the group itself, they're all well-meaning locals obviously having a lot of fun, and so were members of the audience, but the play itself was mostly tedium.
The play was entitled 'Coriander,' and was a rather spirited and silly attempt to mash together a Greek play, some rather ordinary but well-considered ideas about free will, and our local politics about the replacement of one of the two freeways that plunge through our fair city.
The play did a very good job of lampooning our local politicians, for whom, as one put it, 'process in the product.' Reaching a decision is not the objective of our city council: justifying their existence by pulling ever-thinner reasons to keep meeting out of thin air seems to be. Our political correctness was on full display, when the council reached a consenus that "men, women, those who haven't quite decided or who are still somewhere in between, aggrieved apes and any other higher-order mammmals who can communicate their needs," may come before the council. This being a joke Greek play, there is a scene in a temple and one of the council members squeaks, "Are there gods here yet? Do I have to think pure thoughts now?" The writer was a punster of the first order, eliciting groans and laughs from the audience, but he belabored his thoughtful points badly.
The actors were pretty good, but the guy who played Hades, er, "Shades," was a bit off.
"Yes, oh blunt instrument of the people's confused will?"
The writer managed to work in the name of the winery into his play. Which was mostly the point: there were wine tastings before, at the intermission, and after the play, showing off six of their wines. The best was their Cabernet, sweet and refreshing and their Perfect a Trois, thick and delicious. The Merlot by itself was a bit metallic, and the Syrah suffered from being, well, boring. I might pick up a little of the Perfect a Trois, just to enjoy, but it's more of an Autumn wine.
Given the weather around here, it might be time to pick it up now. Not a tragic way to spend the afternoon, but I'd like a less obvious excuse to enjoy good wines.
