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#51

Clybourne Park: Review and Rant

Posted: 6/25/12 at 2:31pm

RippedMan...just remember, with regard to this being a multi-prize winning play, there are a few old phrases that that come to mind when I think abotu Clyboure Park:
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"
"even toilet paper hangs in the museum"

Speaking of museum - reminds me how I realized on Friday night, when I visited the MoMA, how I screwed up big time. All these years I've been throwing the shells away after I eat mussels. Wouldn't you know - someone put those empty shells in a bowl and now they are on display in the MoMA!

Point with that story is that there are lots of people who appreciate Clybourne Park and obviously some who like to look at a bowl of empty mussel shells. It's all good and I respect both...just not for me.

#52

Clybourne Park: Review and Rant

Posted: 6/25/12 at 3:31pm

"Maybe this is a naive thing to say, but while I think people are certainly racist today, I think it's a much more subtle sort of racism."

Or not so subtle

#53

Clybourne Park: Review and Rant

Posted: 6/26/12 at 2:43am

Brain. Valid point, totally. But it saddens me when the people who have this horrible tastes are the people who are reviewing theater, etc.

Also, if I remember correctly it wasn't well-reviewed off-Broadway, but now that it's won the Pulitzer, it's suddenly this great American play? It's the same production.

#54

Clybourne Park: Review and Rant

Posted: 6/26/12 at 11:51am

I agree! Amazing how it got raised on this platform.

Also agree that if you don't like something - be respectful and try to understand/explain why...especially if you are posting on here where we are discussing it.

I know that there has to be some intro into understanding the characters, who they are, what their quirks are to give us a better understanding of personality. I remember listening to the beginning of Act 1 - specifically the exchange about Neopolitan - I was dubstruck that 10 minutes (or at least it felt like 10 minutes or more) were spent discussing this when you consider that the show runs a little over 2 hours (minus the intermission). Probably 10% of the show was on this and then a similiar exchange to open act 2! I wasn't impressed. Kept making me think..."this is Pulitzer Prize winning writing?" At the time it had not yet won the Tony Award.

Opening admitting that I am not a fan of Plays. I go once in a while as I do with Opera to keep my horizons open and aware. Reminds me that I still enjoy musicals much more.

#55

Clybourne Park: Review and Rant

Posted: 6/26/12 at 12:38pm

Ew....I didn't want to come back anywhere near this thread, but then Ripped Man blatantly LIES to back up his hyper-offense that this magnificent play got good reviews.

The off Broadway production was certainly well-received, liar (and a stupid liar at that, anyone could just look up the original Times review and find you are a Liar McLiarson.) Now, it wasn't the outsized rave review it later started to attract as its legend grew, but its certainly a B+. And please don't come back here with a tepid little bad review from some blog or magazine, we all know whose reviews matter.

http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/theater/reviews/22clybourne.html?pagewanted=all

Again, I completely understand someone not liking something that most critical institutions love and being a little confused by that. But to go on for pages and pages and pages about how wrong it was that people way smarter than yourself like it says so much about you, what deep down bothers you about what this play is saying. You've proved yourself stupid and a liar...the jump to what you also are isn't that hard.

Updated On: 6/26/12 at 12:38 PM

#56

Clybourne Park: Review and Rant

Posted: 6/26/12 at 12:46pm

The conversation about Neopolitan and its etymology at the top of the play is more than just a lubricant into the characters, it's getting at the play's major theme, which is this idea of otherness and lack of understanding of other cultures. Here's a middle-class couple having (what I thought was) a pretty amusing conversation about people and places halfway around the world they've never been to. In Act II, the characters have a similar exchange - by now, they're more well-traveled but the same complacent world view is intact.

The fact that the play digs right into its thematic material in its first lines (albeit in an indirect way) was something I found impressive in retrospect.

#57

Clybourne Park: Review and Rant

Posted: 6/26/12 at 12:48pm

"The conversation about Neopolitan and its etymology at the top of the play is more than just a lubricant into the characters, it's getting at the play's major theme, which is this idea of otherness and lack of understanding of other cultures. Here's a middle-class couple having (what I thought was) a pretty amusing conversation about people and places halfway around the world they've never been to. In Act II, the characters have a similar exchange - by now, they're more well-traveled but the same complacent world view is intact.

The fact that the play digs right into its thematic material in its first lines (albeit in an indirect way) was something I found impressive in retrospect."

Yes. Yes, yes and more yes!!!

#58

Clybourne Park: Review and Rant

Posted: 6/26/12 at 12:51pm

For ****'s sake, Owen:

NOT LIKING THIS PLAY DOES NOT MAKE YOU A RACIST.

You're starting to sound like one of the characters from the second act, only with less depth.

"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."

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