I want to say I was mindblown. But I left the theater mostly confused and somewhat annoyed. Some comments:
I liked the metaphors: “Black horses of love.” “Summer is here.”” Winter is coming. (wink wink) ” My brain wore new clothes each time a supertitle spat out a line of beautiful poetic imagery. Each of these metaphors added new dimension to my understanding of different concepts. I can taste the salt of the sea when I hold “freedom” in my mouth, for example. Whenever I hear “repression” in my polsci class, I’m reminded of the claustrophobia created by Plague’s rule over the people. “Love”, to me, clings like the primeval, earthy smell of manure.
I liked the setup: The black garbage bag-like material that was spread across the stage created an eery sense of suspense: its supposed to CONCEAL something in or under the floor. And yes, Death and Plague showed up from underneath. The weirdly detached voice recording of a man in the beginning of the performance was a pleasant “addition” to the performance. He didn’t seem to show up after the first few seconds but it was entertaining for a while. The videos shown above the stage complemented the themes of the play. When the governor was speaking and the screens showed his silently screaming face, it gave a Big Brother-esque vibe to the play.
But I just didn’t enjoy the performance:
(a) Maybe it’s just the times. I wasn’t able to enjoy it because it was not relevant to me. I don’t “see” the problems that the performance seemed to be harping about. But maybe that’s just because the play was written during World War 2 when totalitarian and fascist governments really did make cities feel more like coffins.
(b) Maybe it was just too “romantic” for me. I don’t know. One of the messages I got from the play was that one must be able to forget the fear of death to initiate regime change. Hm. It seems to particularly glorify this romantic martyr mentality instead of, I would say, the more important pragmatic coordination needed to create a successful revolution (it’s almost polsci midterms, so I’m reviewing my notes simultaneously). I know the play is not a handbook, but I’m also questioning its appropriateness in our time, when populists who appeal to emotion are starting to take the reins and terrorists are able to convince people to die for their cause by painting visions of heaven.
(c) I didn’t understand the “jokes”. It made me salty.
