"If watching a woman dressed as a man pretend to
masturbate to orgasm---TWICE! ---isn't revolting
enough for you, how about a coffee table made out of a
coffin in which the father of the family is slowly
and stinkily decomposing? And so is the play.
It's "Food for Fish" by Adam Szymkowicz, a thoroughly
stupid production in which most of the parts are
played by actors of the opposite sex. What it's about
I couldn't tell you. I left at intermission. But the
playwright has the nerve to claim that it's loosely
based on Chekhov's "Three Sisters". (You bet! Just
like
"Dumb and Dumber" is based on "Hamlet").
This is not a review, it's a heads-up. "Food for Fish"
will be performed at Theatre of Note, 1517 N. Cahuenga
Blvd. in Hollywood through June 2nd. Consider yourself
warned!"
I don't think she liked it. What do you think? Am I
crazy?
Although I bet we'll get some people in to see it from
this seemingly bad review. On the theatre company
myspace someone wrote "Masturbating men being played
by women? Where's my fucking ticket?"
22 comments:
Hey, if you read between the lines, it's not that bad!
This review is hilarious, and your response to it is classy and right-on.
I don't remember the husband character masturbating twice (TWICE!) in the production I saw. Am I just not easily offended?
Also, most of the characters aren't played in drag... two of them are. Out of four. That's half.
I like that the fact that there is transvestite casting is "disgusting" to the reviewer...reveals a lot more about them than anything else.
Is no one else concerned that the reviewer LEFT AT INTERMISSION? Not that he or she would've started liking it or anything, but isn't that not a cool thing for reviewers to do?
(I love the myspace comment.)
YEah, I don't remember the husband character masturbating twice either. I should ask the producers about that. Maybe she looked away and when she turned back he was still masturbating and she counted it twice.
and yes there are two characters that are cross gender all the way through and some other cross gender doubling. but I agree she was wrong. Both of these point to a counting problem on her part or the play is vastly different than the way I wrote it.
Gabriele had me trash my original comment. She said it went too far. (okay, I almost agree, but not really.) So an edited version follows.
What’s up with reviewers posting their butt-ugly faces right up there with their butt-ugly words? When they do that, shouldn’t we then “consider the source” as they say?
http://www.reviewplays.com/images/imagecynthia.jpg
Check out that haircut and those pearls. How did she get in the building? Don’t they have any security at Theatre of Note?
Jaime, I'm not sure i would have wanted her negative energy to continue to be in the room. She wasn't going to suddenly like it. She wasn't interested in what the play was about or what I was trying to say with the gender reversal. But also i don't get the idea that her publication is exactly the most reputable.
Although I'm not sure that there is a code that reviewers stay through a show whether they want to or not. I did start to wonder from Isherwood's review of Rolin Jones's play if he had seen the whole thing or not.
crap on her.
(and i'm not familiar with Food for Fish (never read or saw it), but funnily i'm working on a piece that uses a similar conceit to a different effect.
cool. you should read it. or not.
Your review in LAWeekly is hot, and from one of the two top critics there. That's the one that counts. Can't wait to see it.
oh, good. I had no idea what kind of a publication LA Weekly was, but it's clearly a much better publication than this review.
i'd love to read it. email?
i owe you one as well.
I've always assumed it's part of the reviewers job to review the whole play, not just the first act. Not projecting negative energy all over the place would be nice, too. I don't think she'd have written anything different had she stayed, but to proclaim the fact that she left half-way seems counterintuitive to me - I don't think it's kosher for reviewers to leave.
LA Weekly is the free weekly periodical in town -- kind of a New Times publication (it may, in fact, BE a New Times publication). I personally think the theater criticism and the value the paper places on local theater far surpasses the LATimes'. Not that I have a big beef with the quality of LATimes' criticism they just don't devote as much space or attention to smaller theaters as LAWeekly does. And they review New York shows, which doesn't make much sense to me.
FYI - We have another reviewer being sent from reviewplays.com after a lovely letter written by one of our company members. I will email it to you.
And Dexter rubs his who-see-whats-it through his pants while Barbara brushes her teeth to help try and get in the mood. Not exactly masturbation (not that that woman has ever done it or watched anyone do it to know the difference) BUT he absolutely does not orgasm more than once (as it is written)
Thanks, Mandi. Both good news. Looking forward to seeing you the week of the 17th.
You too, Kyle.
Hi Adam
The LA Weekly is kind of the Los Angeles version of The Village Voice.
The reviewplays.com site isn't much of anything and isn't taken seriously by anybody. If you google other reviews by Cynthia Citron, you'll get the picture. She can't write OR count.
thanks, Scott! I'm not sure which Scott you are but if you're in LA, I'll see you there.
That poor woman needs to learn to write and count.
I did theater in LA and OC for almost ten years and this is the first time I have ever HEARD of reviewplays.com. It is by no means an important source of reviews in LA. In general, there are not really strong web-based review houses in LA. Most of them are considered a bit sketchy-- the print reviews are the important ones.
And in looking at some of their other reviews-- I am delighted that they loved my friend Darin Anthony's direction of Ann Noble's new play! But the reviewer says that Darin must have already build a new room onto his house to hold all his awards. That is totally backwards-- Darin is hugely UNDER-AWARDED for the fab work he does in LA-- so I don't know what great cache of awards the reviewer thinks he has won. I can come up with a long list, I think he SHOULD win-- but I find that part of the review pretty misleading.
LA Weekly is biggest review in LA pretty much. Unless you can get the LA Times out to see the show.
oh, good, Johnna. Thanks. that's good news.
Ooo - a challenge! Here goes ... (cracks knuckles):
"… [W]atching … TWICE! … isn't … enough … [T]he play …"Food for Fish" by Adam Szymkowicz, … [j]ust like … "Hamlet"[,] … is … [t]heatre of [n]ote …"
There, corrected that one for you.
I knew you could do it. i was trying to figure out how to do it myself, but what you did there, pure genius. I'll add it to the back of the published play.
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