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The Donkey Show!
Feb. 6th, 2010 11:48 amLast night, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tamidon and I went out on a date! <muppet_arms>Yayyy!!!</muppet_arms> We went to see The Donkey Show.
This is Shakespeare's plot of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in a disco in 1977. It is held at Club Oberon (get it?), which is at 4 Arrow Street in Cambridge. (It is not, I assure you, at 64 Brattle Street, no matter what your online notification of your ticket sales says. That's just the address of the box office. Parking insanity ensued.)
This is not Shakespeare's script, at all. It's a disco. Disco music from the '70s is playing the entire time. There are seats at tables up off the dance floor, but we were right smack in the middle of the floor, with easy access to the bar (as needed). There were a couple of mirrored platforms which the fairy boys moved around the floor; one cast member was listed as "Disco Girl", and she was dancing in a period strapless blue dress, but her real job was dynamic stage manager, which she did thru-out the show without breaking character.
The plot is reduced to the Oberon / Tytania / Puck / Bottom story and the Helena (Helen) / Demetrius (Dmitri) / Hermia (Mia) / Lysander (Xander) story. The part of Bottom is played by two guys named Vinnie, each with outrageous 'fros. The rude mechanicals both work at the car wash (cue the music!).
Some critics have complained about the lack of Shakespeare's dialog; given the disco's continuous music, and the fact that the plot lines are moved along by the characters singing period disco songs ("Car Wash", "I Love the Nightlife", "Bad Girls", etc.), this really wasn't a feasible option. I believe it helps to know the original story, but I dare hazard a guess that many of the local college students were there for the "retro" show, and considered the acting a bonus.
Some other critics have castigated director Diane Paulus for the "sexual predation" of the show, and that's somewhat valid. However, the unwanted attention that the women receive comes from Shakespeare's original plot; the creepiest scene is easily Oberon cooking up some C-dust in a giant spoon and injecting it into Tytania's eyes to make her fall for the first jackass she sees (Vinnie & Vinnie, playing the eponymous Donkey). But this is still a comedy, and Helen and Mia do get their justice in the end (to the tune of "Enough is Enough").
The fairy boys (Moth, Mustardseed, Peaseblossom, and Cob Web) are FABULOUS! They're ripped, utterly covered with glitter, gorgeous, dancing the entire time, and not terribly obnoxious with the lifeguard whistles (a gripe of mine from disco's original run).
And that brings us back to the setting: Club Oberon looks a lot like the Old Board and Faces, two discos I used to go to 32 years ago. The audience is bimodal: many in their early twenties, and some of us who caught disco the first time. Apparently, disco repels those who came just after it, despite continuing on as synthpop, techno, house, big beat, etc. Just say "disco", and people who enjoy four-on-the-floor dance music will recoil and claim that "disco sucks"; many of these people don't even know the racism and homophobia behind the original "disco sucks" movement.
Those of us past middle age sang along with the songs; those still in their twenties just sort of looked at us.
Here's a shocker: I danced the entire time. I've been having personal issues with dancing over the last ten years or so, but the instant I was on that floor, I didn't stop moving until we got back to the coat check.tamidon was also dancing for most of it, as was everyone else on the floor (not just the actors).
There was some "audience participation", but this amounted to the fairy boys and Tytania asking audience members if they'd like to dance in the spotlight for a moment; there was no public humiliation of anyone but some characters.
They dropped paper butterflies from the ceiling! They had a giant mirror ball! They had four speakers in quadrophonic sound!
After the show's curtain call, during which we find that eight characters were played by four actresses, THE PARTY CONTINUES! On Saturdays, they have performances at 8 and 10:30, so I have to assume that the all-night party is only after the later show. However, we be old, so after dancing for only half an hour or so after the show, we went out for ice cream and then drove home.
I enjoyed myself immensely.
tamidon and I went out on a date! <muppet_arms>Yayyy!!!</muppet_arms> We went to see The Donkey Show.This is Shakespeare's plot of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in a disco in 1977. It is held at Club Oberon (get it?), which is at 4 Arrow Street in Cambridge. (It is not, I assure you, at 64 Brattle Street, no matter what your online notification of your ticket sales says. That's just the address of the box office. Parking insanity ensued.)
This is not Shakespeare's script, at all. It's a disco. Disco music from the '70s is playing the entire time. There are seats at tables up off the dance floor, but we were right smack in the middle of the floor, with easy access to the bar (as needed). There were a couple of mirrored platforms which the fairy boys moved around the floor; one cast member was listed as "Disco Girl", and she was dancing in a period strapless blue dress, but her real job was dynamic stage manager, which she did thru-out the show without breaking character.
The plot is reduced to the Oberon / Tytania / Puck / Bottom story and the Helena (Helen) / Demetrius (Dmitri) / Hermia (Mia) / Lysander (Xander) story. The part of Bottom is played by two guys named Vinnie, each with outrageous 'fros. The rude mechanicals both work at the car wash (cue the music!).
Some critics have complained about the lack of Shakespeare's dialog; given the disco's continuous music, and the fact that the plot lines are moved along by the characters singing period disco songs ("Car Wash", "I Love the Nightlife", "Bad Girls", etc.), this really wasn't a feasible option. I believe it helps to know the original story, but I dare hazard a guess that many of the local college students were there for the "retro" show, and considered the acting a bonus.
Some other critics have castigated director Diane Paulus for the "sexual predation" of the show, and that's somewhat valid. However, the unwanted attention that the women receive comes from Shakespeare's original plot; the creepiest scene is easily Oberon cooking up some C-dust in a giant spoon and injecting it into Tytania's eyes to make her fall for the first jackass she sees (Vinnie & Vinnie, playing the eponymous Donkey). But this is still a comedy, and Helen and Mia do get their justice in the end (to the tune of "Enough is Enough").
The fairy boys (Moth, Mustardseed, Peaseblossom, and Cob Web) are FABULOUS! They're ripped, utterly covered with glitter, gorgeous, dancing the entire time, and not terribly obnoxious with the lifeguard whistles (a gripe of mine from disco's original run).
And that brings us back to the setting: Club Oberon looks a lot like the Old Board and Faces, two discos I used to go to 32 years ago. The audience is bimodal: many in their early twenties, and some of us who caught disco the first time. Apparently, disco repels those who came just after it, despite continuing on as synthpop, techno, house, big beat, etc. Just say "disco", and people who enjoy four-on-the-floor dance music will recoil and claim that "disco sucks"; many of these people don't even know the racism and homophobia behind the original "disco sucks" movement.
Those of us past middle age sang along with the songs; those still in their twenties just sort of looked at us.
Here's a shocker: I danced the entire time. I've been having personal issues with dancing over the last ten years or so, but the instant I was on that floor, I didn't stop moving until we got back to the coat check.
tamidon was also dancing for most of it, as was everyone else on the floor (not just the actors).There was some "audience participation", but this amounted to the fairy boys and Tytania asking audience members if they'd like to dance in the spotlight for a moment; there was no public humiliation of anyone but some characters.
They dropped paper butterflies from the ceiling! They had a giant mirror ball! They had four speakers in quadrophonic sound!
After the show's curtain call, during which we find that eight characters were played by four actresses, THE PARTY CONTINUES! On Saturdays, they have performances at 8 and 10:30, so I have to assume that the all-night party is only after the later show. However, we be old, so after dancing for only half an hour or so after the show, we went out for ice cream and then drove home.
I enjoyed myself immensely.
