Better to know show or not when seeing it?- Page 2

[bwayfan7000]

Posted: 2/2/11 at 3:36pm

Going in blind can be fun, but the internet in general and this site in particular make it hard to do that for me anymore. I'm just too curious about all the details about a show that I can find out before I see it. The one show that I did recently somehow avoid all details of besides the basic stuff was August: Osage County. I remained unaware of any spoilers all the way through the Broadway run and was floored by it when I saw it on tour. I'm glad I was able to do that, but it doesn't happen for me for most shows.

[defygravity24]

Posted: 2/2/11 at 4:24pm

I like going in on the plot blind, but listening to a few (not all) of the songs before hand. That way I can get excited for a certain song that might be coming up, but for the most part everuthing is still new.

[inick122492]

Posted: 2/2/11 at 8:20pm

I think it depends on; how patient you are, your taste, the hype the show has had and the expectations you walk in seeing it.
I saw August Osage County not know much about it and it blew me away.
" " Wicked knowing almost all of it and I was still stunned
" " Spring Awakening, knowing nothing and feeling underwhelmed

[Jack Lopez-Turner]

Posted: 2/2/11 at 8:35pm

It's really a toss up. Some shows like "Caroline or Change" or "Jelly's Last Jam" I knew nothing about when I saw them. It did make it nice for a change to not know the music before hearing it. But then I also like knowing what to expect on some level too.

[JMPlayer6]

Posted: 2/3/11 at 1:24pm

I prefer to know nothing --- or, to be precise, a bit less than nothing. Just the basics of the play, and perhaps a very broad overview of the story (but not the ending). For example, the recent posts on "Book of Mormon": I know that only described the first 25 minutes of the show, but I read just the first bit of what was in the link, not even the entire thing.

The only exceptions I can think of off-hand are two: The first was [title of show]. I am glad I did on that one, because understanding where the play came from and how it evolved helped make all the self-referencing stuff that much more enjoyable. The other example is "The Merchant of Venice". I'd read it in high school, and remembered it very generally, but the language can make things difficult, so a couple days before seeing the current version on Broadway, I went online and read an overview of the entire story, to make sure that I got it all when I watched it. (As it turns out, the Playbill already had an overview in it, but I didn't know that.)

But, as a rule of thumb, I prefer to know very little about a play going into it.

[Weez]

Posted: 2/4/11 at 4:40am

There is no right or wrong answer to this one, there is only what you find works best for you.

With musicals or contemporary plays, I'm generally happy to go in blind. They're rarely very difficult to follow, and if it's brand-spanking new then I often don't have the opporunity or means to get to know it beforehand.

With Shakespeare, however, I like to know the play first. I've seen 30 of them, and 24 of those were without knowing a thing about them before seeing them for the first time. I ended up expending so much mental energy on simply understanding them that I didn't keep anything aside for remembering, and now I KNOW I've seen some truly wonderful productions, but I can't remember them even half as well as I would like, which just kills me on the inside. Now that I'm familiar with more than 30 of his plays, I don't often get the choice about whether or not to go in blind anymore, but I wouldn't want to anyway. That's just what works best for me. :)