BASH'd: A GAY RAP OPERA Reviews

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 6/24/08 at 6:45am

Theatermania is a Rave:

After receiving well deserved accolades for its run at last year's New York International Fringe Festival, Canadians Chris Craddock and Nathan Cuckow's self-described "gay rap opera" Bash'd has transferred to a commercial run at the Zipper Factory. While the current incarnation of the show is timed to coincide with New York's Gay Pride festivities, this is a truly remarkable production that would be welcome any time of the year.

http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/14309

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 6/24/08 at 6:46am

Talkin' Broadway is a Rave:

How often does rap move you to tears? The rhythm-propelled pop form hasn't traditionally concerned itself with the more introspective matters one would usually associate with emotional sensitivity - to say nothing of musical theatre. But when it's spoken from the heart, even it can be as devastating and elevating as a soaring ballad or a sweeping aria.

If you're incredulous - and, given Broadway's rap-friendly but stickily sentimental new Tony-winning Best Musical In the Heights, who wouldn't be? - the show that just opened at the Zipper Factory Theater might change your beat. It's called BASH'd: A Gay Rap Opera, and is every bit as unsettling and incongruous as its title promises. It's also edgier, sharper, and more legitimately moving than any other show in town.

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/ob/06_23_08.html

Updated On: 6/24/08 at 06:46 AM

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 6/24/08 at 7:04am

Variety is a Rave:

Canada is not an obvious breeding ground for great white rappers -- remember Snow? -- but the Caucasian Canucks behind "Bash'd!: A Gay Rap Opera" have skills. Their 65-minute concert-cum-musical, transferring to Off Broadway's Zipper after berths in Canada and the New York Fringe Festival, not only puts a smart spin on gay rights but also delivers some radio-worthy hip-hop.

Musically and dramaturgically, the rapped-through show is a study in aggression. Telling the story of a gay Canadian couple whose marriage is marred by violence, narrators T-Bag (Chris Craddock) and Feminem (Nathan Cuckow) argue whether the young lovers should fight back or simply move on.

Duo also play every other character in the story, voicing perspectives from radical activism to staunch homophobia.

That's a potent approach. The gay community has long been divided over its relationship to straight culture, and the increasing acceptance of gay marriage only propels both sides: From one vantage point, marriage equality grants everyone the same human dignity, but from another, it assimilates gay people into hostile hetero traditions.

T-Bag and Feminem debate this issue in blunt political terms, but Craddock and Cuckow, also the show's lyricists, shrewdly leave the rhetoric to their narrators. The rest of the characters embody the human side of gay rights, as when naive country boy Dillon (Cuckow) falls for street-smart city kid Jack (Craddock). Both men have archetypal qualities, but they also have specific, relatable traits.
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But "Bash'd" is more than just social issues. Craddock and Cuckow include plenty of comedy, and director Ron Jenkins adds his own funny touches. A song about the various stereotypes in a gay club becomes a satirical tour de force, with the narrators embodying everything from brainless twinks to militant lesbians (and finding examples of each in the audience).

And while it's easy for hip-hop shows to devolve into rappers standing still, Jenkins crafts a string of expressive moments. Sometimes, for instance, one thesp silently lip-syncs with the other, suggesting that a particular verse has universal weight. In one moment, Jack leaps onto Dillon's back to rap about how much he loves him, physicalizing the couple's supportiveness.

As rappers, both thesps have an impressive, hypnotic flow, and they manage to maintain it even as they act their words. (Rapping with emotional emphasis is difficult, since pauses and inflections can sabotage the rhythm of a verse.)

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117937488.html?categoryid=1265&cs=1

[folkyboy]

Posted: 6/24/08 at 8:48am

This article about them was pretty frank and made the show actually sound intriguing to me (for once)
The Times article

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 6/25/08 at 1:57am

Yea!!!! This show deserves raves!

[hubee]

Posted: 6/25/08 at 4:04am

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/theater/reviews/25bash.html?ref=arts

The NY Times review (by Andy Webster) is out. (pun not intended)

"Those familiar with Manhattan gay culture may not find a lot of new ground in “Bash’d!,” billed as a “gay rap opera,” other than the novelty of a story recited entirely in verse and set to electronic rhythms and samples. Certainly not in the sexual explicitness of its lyrics, its nightclub argot or its star-crossed “Romeo and Romeo” narrative. But such an audience should be impressed by the passion of its convictions...

...“Bash’d!” isn’t drama; it’s fabulist agitprop. Yet it comes down to earth at the right times, and is blunt where it needs to be, in its vigorous defense of gay marriage and in a haunting recitation of names of people murdered in homophobic hysteria, beginning with Matthew Shepard and Brandon Teena. And going on. And on. And on. In such moments “Bash’d!” shows its rage, its grief and its driven, heartfelt determination."

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 6/25/08 at 8:05am

The TIMES gave it like two paragraphs?
And who is Andy Webster?

[NYCboy2]

Posted: 6/25/08 at 8:15am

damn! I wanna see this show!

[SirNotAppearing]

Posted: 6/25/08 at 8:18am

Sounds interesting, although the title is a little iffy.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 6/25/08 at 9:42am

Here's a review by Michael Dale:

https://www.broadwayworld.com/showtime/

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 6/25/08 at 10:49am

Theater News Online gives it a Rave Review:

The idea of a gay rap musical might seem a jokey gimmick, especially considering rap music's well-known homophobic bent. But the brilliant and inventive Bash'd: A Gay Rap Opera is anything but a joke or a gimmick. The all-rapped show credibly co-opts the blunt aggression and uncompromisingly explicit language of hip-hop to deliver an affecting gay love story and an in-your-face demand for equal rights. The result is exhilarating and distinctly contemporary music theater that exploits, rather than diminishes, the unique ferocity of rap for the stage.


The show's writer-performers, Chris Craddock and Nathan Cuckow , respectively play Jack and Dillon (and, with skill and dexterity, a wide variety of characters who interact with them). The two young gay Canadians meet, fall quickly in love and (as was newly legal in their country in 2005 when the musical is set) get married. Their happiness is cut short when Jack is brutally gay bashed: Jack shuts down fearfully in the aftermath, while Dillon seethes with righteous rage and the not-so-righteous need to retaliate.
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Throughout, composer Aaron Macri's hip-hop score is put to judicious storytelling use in tandem with Craddock and Cuckow's easily flowing, sometimes baldly pornographic lyrics. The couple's courtship is rendered with believable warmth and tenderness, using nearly conversational plain-spoken raps to articulate the men's deepening connectedness.
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The show's tone becomes more blatantly aggressive, eventually no less than an out and proud rallying cry for equal rights and social justice. There's nothing subtle about it, but if it were subtle it wouldn't be true to the blunt directness of rap music. In line with the most basic and original functions of rap music to fight the power on behalf of the oppressed, the show very clearly attributes Canada's rise in anti-gay hate crimes to public authorities whose fighting words sought to inspire outrage over same-sex marriages. To say the show is topical would be understatement.

Perhaps the most thrilling success of Bash'd: A Gay Rap Opera is that it puts credible hip-hop on stage, confidently claiming the genre's hyper-masculine swagger in service of a richly emotional story of gay empowerment. To put it bluntly, it's a knockout.

http://theaternewsonline.com/NYTheaterReviews/STANDANDDELIVER.cfm

[Patash]

Posted: 6/25/08 at 10:52am

Was able to work this into my schedule -- a 7:30 performance on Friday (it's only 75 minutes long). There is also one at 10:00 on Friday. Discounts tickets for $39.50 easily available.

[StockardFan]

Posted: 6/25/08 at 11:50am

It sounds interesting for sure.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 6/25/08 at 4:09pm

Time Out New York is Positive:

[jenna2]

Posted: 6/26/08 at 3:52pm

It's great to see that the show is being so well-received. Now I only wish it would come back here, so I can see it again.

And the paragraph about Alberta in the Times article is horrifically accurate.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 6/27/08 at 1:46pm

I LOVE that Adam Feldman loved it! :)

[Summer Trouble]

Posted: 7/1/08 at 5:27pm

BASH'd has a facebook fanpage: http://www.facebook.com/pages/BASHd-A-Gay-Rap-Opera/11931924353

They have all of the recent reviews, and a deal posted for $29 tickets.

They have pictures of the boys from the Pride Parade on Sunday.
Was anyone else at the parade? It was wet crazy fun!