Blather Plays
Blather Plays
After Eight
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
#1Blather Plays
Posted: 12/22/14 at 9:36pm
Do you know whether you can lick your own elbow? Did you ever care to know?
If your answer to these questions is "no," then you're out of luck--- that is, if you have the misfortune to see the play, Constellations, now appearing on Broadway. Because you're going be apprised of such vital information, and more of the same, whether you like it or not.
Why, you wonder?
Why, because it's a blather play.
"A what???"
A blather play.
You mean, you don't know what a blather play is? I guess you didn't get to see such gems as The River, The Flick, Clybourne Park, Circle, Mirror, Transformation, The (Curious Case of the) Watson Intelligence, The Realistic Joneses, Detroit, and heaven knows how many others. Not to mention the heaping mound of them penned by one Tom Stoppard, uncontested master of the genre.
These are plays in which the authors, unwilling or unable to provide anything in the way of interesting drama, pummel you instead with characters who play puerile, self-indulgent games, or who yammer on endlessly about matters no one gives a hoot in hell about. Did you know the specifics of the mating rites of bees? If not, Constellations will tell you all you all about them --- repeatedly! You see, this play does its counterparts one better by regurgitating the same uninteresting prattle three or four times over.
Oh, but you say you did see them? And they left you so bored, enervated, and aggravated you wanted to scream? Well, there's the proof: you were at a blather play. Of course, your suffering matters not a whit, not when the critics are falling all over themselves bestowing rapturous praise on these wonders: "masterful," "searing," "brilliant," "illuminating," "stimulating," and, the inevitable "heart-wrenchingly beautiful." Why, it was so heart-wrenchingly beautiful, they had all dissolved into tears by the final curtain.
They were sobbing; your head was throbbing.
A blather play.
Fantod
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/3/14
#2Blather Plays
Posted: 12/22/14 at 9:40pm
Well as a subscriber to the ACT-SF, I have seen a whole bunch of Tom Stoppard plays, and have read The Flick and Detroit, and find that description to be apt for those plays. I think I will stay away from the other plays you have mentioned. Sorry you had to see plays that you hated.
Updated On: 12/23/14 at 09:40 PM
Borstalboy
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/9/04
#2Blather Plays
Posted: 12/22/14 at 9:41pmYou're so inventive and fun.
"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
~ Muhammad Ali
#3Blather Plays
Posted: 12/22/14 at 9:55pmAfter Eight is Broadwayworld's own Fosca, isn't he?
"Sticks and stones, sister. Here, have a Valium." - Patti LuPone, a Memoir
Mr Roxy
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
#4Blather Plays
Posted: 12/22/14 at 9:59pmJust what I want from Broadway. Spending big bucks to see a show about 1 hour long that is a Seinfeld play that is a show about nothing.I am rushing to the theater now. Reminds me if Copenhagen - Blah Blah Blah. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Poster Emeritus
Mr Roxy
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
#6Blather Plays
Posted: 12/22/14 at 11:14pm
Totally agree your post is of the blather variety.
Poster Emeritus
Updated On: 12/23/14 at 11:14 PM
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#7Blather Plays
Posted: 12/23/14 at 9:32am
"These are plays in which the authors, unwilling or unable to provide anything in the way of interesting drama, pummel you instead with characters who play puerile, self-indulgent games, or who yammer on endlessly about matters no one gives a hoot in hell about."
Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf
I don't get it. Everyone calls it a brilliant play, but I just see a blather play.
If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.
Mr Roxy
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#10Blather Plays
Posted: 12/23/14 at 10:04am
I had a dream once where I could like my own penis.
I had a dream once where I could lick my own penis.
....but the world goes 'round
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#12Blather Plays
Posted: 12/23/14 at 10:25amHow ironic that the OP is the Chief Blather-er in Residence of BWW.
....but the world goes 'round
#13Blather Plays
Posted: 12/27/14 at 4:16pm
PRS, there's a great distance between your intended post (regarding cat-like abilities) and your actual post (regarding transgender issues). 
As far as the issue of "blather," I think some of the late 19th and early 20th century playwrights can be accused of "blather." When I refer to a play as too "talky," I'm probably saying the same thing as the OP. In retrospect, I think Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw are guilty of "blather."
Audrey, the Phantom Phanatic, who nonetheless would rather be Jean Valjean, who knew how to make lemonade out of lemons.
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