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1

House Theatre in Chicago has taken a similar approach, and it's paid off big-time for them. They're just going into their 5th season now, and I imagine tickets are going to be even harder to come by this year.

Also, big, fun, imaginative spectacles are great.

Posted by brie | September 14, 2007 1:56 PM
2

Seattle Theater is better than anything Royal Shakespeare Company is doing. Any play with lots of shaving cream and an actor in Speedos is great spectacle.

There is nothing more boring than a play with too many words and not enough set. Audience pleasers today have to have roller skates and giant toasters. I think the Romans called the effect "Bread and Circus" because crowds love this kind of theatre so much.

Posted by Issur | September 14, 2007 2:15 PM
3

I would give both my testes to see the Dorky Park show again.

Thanks, Brendan.

Posted by I [heart] spectacle | September 14, 2007 3:19 PM
4

Theatre in America is a fun diversion with little social impact these days.

Oh well.

Posted by Sad Actor | September 15, 2007 8:48 PM
5

@2: Don't be obtuse. That's not what I meant and you know it.

@4: I don't think so. Many of these spectacle acts—Dorky Park, Implied Violence, Strawberry Theatre Workshop, and Hand2Mouth (a Portland company I saw this weekend at TBA)—are all about social impact. Which I would normally count as a strike against them except they manage to be intellectually and aesthetically stimulating and not insultingly didactic.

Also: The logical conclusion of "social impact theater" is Socialist Realism. Which was an awful, stunted, dishonest chapter in the history of culture. You don't really want that, do you?

Posted by Brendan Kiley | September 16, 2007 8:41 PM

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