Intimacy - New Group - wow

[Matt Rogers]

Posted: 1/14/14 at 10:52pm

They sent me a code for $25 tickets and I went tonight. Think it was the first preview.

I did not see Thomas Bradshaw's previous play with New Group, Burning, but I read all the posts about it. So I was prepared for some insanity. Nothing prepared me for what was on that stage tonight and I am rushing home to take a shower.

My first reaction to this is: Does Thomas Bradshaw hate actors? Did an actor defecate on him as a child and is he spending his adulthood exacting revenge? The humiliating things the actors in Intimacy are forced to do are too numerous to count but they include:

Sitting on a toilet and taking a very loud and disgusting dump right on stage.

Showing hard ons.

Extended full frontal nudity.

An actor getting whacked off with another actor's feet.

More full frontal nudity.

Sperm spewing across the stage not once, but twice.

I'm sure I'm forgetting things.

I don't know what the hell this thing was, but it feels like Bradshaw is just trying to be shocking for the sake of being shocking.

The play itself is a mess. It is all over the place and doesn't seem to know what it is trying to say, aside from jamming as many nude scenes into a play as possible.

I'm as liberal as they come and if any of this served a purpose, I'd be the first one to endorse it but Bradshaw seems only to want to shock.

I will say this: it's never boring, but you will want to take a shower afterwards, which is where I'm heading now.

Updated On: 1/14/14 at 10:52 PM

[ClydeBarrow]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 12:13am

Not gonna lie, you have intrigued me about the play. I will say that after looking at the cast, I'm not champing at the bit to see any of them full frontal. Was everyone in the show naked at some point?

[oasisjeff]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 12:32am

Oh, so the first two rows are $25 because it's in the splash zone?

[Vespertine1228]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 12:47am

Thomas Bradshaw is, for me, the worst playwright consistently being produced in New York. Brantley usually gives him good reviews, so he's able to maintain a reputation even if the rest of his press is generally bad.

His adaptation of the Book of Job that ran forever at the Flea in Tribeca was a mess. Burning was a travesty. Last year I happened to be visiting the Whitney Museum on the day a one-act he wrote in conjunction with their exhibition on the history of the blues was performing. It was painful. I thought it would never end and it was, at most, an hour long.

I'm sure he's a nice guy if so many people want to work with him, perhaps it's one of those things where the man and the artist are totally different people, but I can't help but wonder if he would have the same career if he was white. Being a black "outsider" playwright affords him the leeway to be misogynistic, super violent, and very sexually explicit for no real purpose in his work.

Would love to start a discussion with someone who is a fan of Bradshaw's work. Not trying to start a catty message board war or anything. Just curious to hear an opinion from the other side. :)

I'm sure there are many people excited to see Intimacy. Me, I'd need at least a few hundred bucks before I'd consider it.

[newintown]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 8:36am

That last play, Burning, was so ridiculously bad, it was truly hilarious (but for all the wrong reasons).

What the New Group thinks they're doing presenting this idiotically badly written stuff is beyond me; it really is nothing more than childish porn performed live, more prurient than Naked Boys Singing. I was hoping that this new play would show some small growth or maturing, but from your description, it sounds like Burning II.

I hope the actors get a kick out of it; there will always be a small set of pretentious acolytes for this sort of thing. I hope they get a kick out of it, too. I'm sure I would enjoy it the way I enjoy watching Showgirls, or Valley of the Dolls, or Mommie Dearest, but that's not what I would think a writer, director, and cast are aiming for...

[notabb]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 9:44am

Wow , I didn't realize this was the same playwright who did BURNING or I would never have bought a ticket. I don't mind nudity or simulated sex if it seems like it serves a purpose but BURNING was just awash in semi porn for semi porns sake. I felt bad for Hunter Foster for even being a part of BURNING. I bought a ticket to INTIMACY so I will go see it but it sounds like its just more of the same crap we saw in BURNING. BURNING was the first show I felt I should have attended in a raincoat.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 9:59am

Matt, this subject line is very doge-y.

Intimacy

New Group

wow

so Bradshaw

much jizz

amaze

[Kad]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 10:05am

I had that same thought!

very critique
wow
much explicit

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 10:07am

The love we share for doge is really rather special.

[Kad]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 10:21am

Doge is the best meme since Grumpy Cat.

[Matt Rogers]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 12:06pm

Ummmmm......I don't get it.

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 6:29pm

I missed BURNING. But a part of me really wants to see this, just to say I saw it.... Is it worth it out of curiosity?

[Matt Rogers]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 7:28pm

Yes worth it for train wreck theatre. Again, it's never boring. Just don't pay more than twenty five bucks and you probably won't feel too cash-raped.....but you'll still want to take a shower afterwards.

[ArtMan]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 7:59pm

I'm going to ask a dumb question. How are they able to perform full erections and everything else you mentioned without getting the law involved? How many shows a week do they have? I haven't seen the cast picture, but good for them if they can do this eight times a week.

[ArtMan]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 7:59pm

I'm going to ask a dumb question. How are they able to perform full erections and everything else you mentioned without getting the law involved? How many shows a week do they have? I haven't seen the cast picture, but good for them if they can do this eight times a week.

[Matt Rogers]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 8:05pm

Don't ask me how but they do it. There is a scene where a guy is whacking to online porn. I thought he was faking it cause his back was to me, but when he turns around, full raging hard on. I couldn't believe it. Then again, I couldn't believe anything else in this insane play either.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 8:15pm

Oh! Oh! Oh! Lemme guess!

The title is ironic, right....right...am I right???

Ooooh, I think I got it! Viva subtlety!!

[oasisjeff]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 8:34pm

"How are they able to perform full erections and everything else you mentioned without getting the law involved?"

If you couldn't get a full erection without having the law involved, I think that would be classified as a fetish.

[ArtMan]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 8:47pm

I meant how are they able to show sexual acts, to that degree, without the law coming in and closing down the show.

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 8:55pm

Well, I went for it. This Saturday at 8. I've been curious ever since I heard stories about BURNING. So I'm definitely intrigued. Front row seat for $25 isn't half bad, either.

[Matt Rogers]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 9:00pm

"The law"?

Ha ha. That sounds like we are in Macon County, Georgia. Be careful, ya'll, the law might show up.

Kidding. I know what you are saying and I actually wondered the same thing myself. I am totally anti-censorship, but some of this stuff really crossed into what could possibly be considered porn. I cannot swear to it based on where my seat was, but I think someone actually got his c**k sucked for a few seconds.

I don't know what the laws are on this kind of thing. I think Eve Ensler has run into trouble in the past but possibly only because she had a grant from National Endowment for the Arts, and Republicans went bat****. There are other examples of the envelope being pushed but I don't know if there are actual laws of what the limit is on onstage in terms of sexual portrayals.

[ArtMan]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 10:10pm

Matt, I live in Jacksonville, Florida where the First Baptist Church practically runs the city. But even when I visit NYC, the dancers in the bars can't even show their weiners without the bar getting in trouble. So how are sucking and cumming taking place live on stage? I know you weren't a fan, but if I was visiting I would truly buy a 25 ticket. BTW, I actually got a speeding ticket in Macon County. Now that was a story.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 1/15/14 at 11:13pm

THE PIED PIPERS OF THE LOWER EAST SIDE was a lousy show that sold like hotcakes because it showed full frontal/full tumescence. Cheap way to get attention.

[broadwayworldreader]

Posted: 1/16/14 at 12:16am

@Artman, It's New York City. Sounds like you're in the wrong bars. :)

[ArtMan]

Posted: 1/16/14 at 7:42am

Broadwayworldreader, any suggestions? I visit again in June.