Some Short Reviews. Just An Opinion, Not A Statement.- Page 2

[mabel]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 9:41am

Thanks, bwayondabrain! Have you seen French Kiss? Speaking of sigs, I love yours as well! I loved it when Michael joined in with "I've got a head like a ping pong ball!"

Anyway, end of our little threadjack and back to the debate...

[uncageg]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 10:39am

Tearsforhai....I am an out of towner, Denver, and I loved the show as did a number of people I know from out of town. Just because we are from out of town does not mean that we are not knowledgeable about New York shows!

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 1:32pm

Oh, you're right mabel. I did write "horrible" i will edit it.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 1:57pm

Well the History Boys video clip didn't make me want to see the show at all. I still am confused as to what the plot is exactly. I'll have to read it.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 2:11pm

Despite the presence of the eight young men in The History Boys, I think the play would be lost on anyone in their teens and 20s. (Not saying it's impossible for a young person to appreciate it, but I guarantee that someone 40-70 or so has a very different experience at that play than someone just starting off in life). Its characters are coping with melancholy, regret, loneliness, unrequited love, failed lives... all things that pack a wallop when you've lived a little longer.

[ZONEACE]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 2:12pm

<---21 and certainly got it.


I don't think thats a fiar statement. and in fact, i find it a little insulting.

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 2:13pm

Ok, honestly i kinda didn't even get it, i couldn't understand what they were saying half the time.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 2:18pm

Too bad. Guess you are easily insulted.

[mabel]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 2:19pm

I'm 21 and I adored the History Boys. I graduated from college in May, and the whole debate over the various forms of education was really hit home for me. Sure, these boys were graduating from grammar school and moving on to university, and I've just graduated from college and am moving on to...whatever...the point is, it still made me look at the past four years and what (if anything) I've gotten out of my education. And it was more than a little depressing that the final scene in Act I inspired me more than any professor managed to in my four years at school.

There are certainly other aspects of the show that touched me as well, themes that smaxie pointed out, but the exploration of the role of education is what really got to me.

Updated On: 6/26/06 at 02:19 PM

[ZONEACE]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 2:23pm

Yeah i guess it is too bad that you are so condescending and easily dismissive of people simply because of their age.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 2:25pm

And I guess it is too bad that at 21, you think you know it all.

[C is for Company]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 2:32pm

Yeah Smaxie, that was a horrible thing to be condescending to someone because of their age! That is almost as bad as ZONEACE mocking others for the shows they like!

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 2:37pm

<------ 24 and definitely didn't get it.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 2:39pm

I wasn't condescending. If you read my post again, I said that people in their teens and 20s will probably have a different experience at The History Boys than those twice that age and older. While I said that some of it will be lost on young people (perhaps where I made an overstatement), I said it's not impossible that a young person would get something out of it.

Regardless of this particular play, take some of the great shows of the theatre. Carousel, Gypsy, Follies et al, will have an effect on you when you are 18 or 20, but will hit you in an entirely different way in middle age.

As an example... Ben Brantley on the 1998 revival of Follies at Paper Mill:

"...the first Broadway show I ever attended was the original 'Follies.' Seeing it at the age of 43 is devastatingly different from seeing it at 16. It helps to have the additional years to connect with the show..."

Or the last sentence of the paragraph of this review by Frank Rich of the 1989 Gypsy:

'Gypsy' may be the only great Broadway musical that follows its audience through life's rough familial passages. ... It speaks to you one way when you are a child, then chases after you to say something else when you've grown up."

Updated On: 6/26/06 at 02:39 PM

[ZONEACE]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 2:46pm

"I think the play would be lost on anyone in their teens and 20s."

YEah, that would be a different experience wouldn't it.

[mabel]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 2:47pm

I can certainly see that Smaxie...I was actually about to post something to the effect of: while I appreciate the show now and have taken much of it to heart, I'm also quite certain that shoule it be revived 30 years down the road, I'll experience a wholly new take on the play.

I really was just about to post something along those lines...I'm not just ass-kissing here.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 2:52pm

Well, ZONEACE, if you take one part of my sentence, and ignore the qualification that follows, it's nothing short of a distortion on your part.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 3:49pm

My parents started taking me to theatre when I was 4 -- no children's theatre, mind you, but Broadway and national touring productions. Their preference was definitely for serious classics and adult contemporary drama and comedy rather than musicals (though we saw a lot of those too) -- revivals of Ibsen, Shakespeare, O'Neill, Miller, Tennessee Williams, etc..... I saw a lot of great and very memorable stuff during my childhood, my teen years and my 20s -- stuff that I thoroughly enjoyed and was transported and moved by. But I agree with Smaxie.

While at 21 I too may have been offended by a statement that suggested that I couldn't fully grasp a given play as well as someone twice my age, but now that I am almost twice that age now, I completely agree. Thanks to this endless stream of revivals on and off Broadway, I have been able to revisit many of the plays that I first saw and adored during my (relative) youth -- Long Day's Journey Into Night, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, A Raisin in the Sun, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Godot, King Lear, Stoppard's The Real Thing to name a few -- and the fact is that there of layers and meanings and resonances to my own life and experiences that I find in them now that I simply couldn't have at 21. Show me a 20 year old who presumbly has never been in a long-term, manipulative, emotionally intense, psychologically abusive relationship who can fully grasp every aspect of characters like George and Martha and Honey and Nick -- my view of these characters has fundamentally changed and shifted between seeing the Burton-Taylor film for the first time back in the 70s and seeing the Turner-Irwin revial last year; I've been through enough ... let's call it "stuff" ...... since then that I now understand and empathize with those characters in ways I couldn't have possibly been able to as a 21 year old who had never had a serious relationship.

Seeing these wonderful, complex and very "adult" works again now through middle-aged eyed now makes for a much richer, deeper and profound experience for me than I could have had with the works 20 years ago. There's truly no insult in that and one day you'll fully comprehend what we're attempting to say here.

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 4:02pm

Im 26yo and i didn't get it, so Smaxie was right when it comes to my case at least, the English accent and the fact i was all the way back might have something to do with it too. Zonace, i thought you were the guy in your avatar. You sound like an old man.

[C is for Company]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 4:06pm

The man in the avatar is Mr. Spencer, the actor who died and starred in the West Wing

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 4:07pm

Ooops, I don't really watch Tv.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 4:24pm

Muscle, in 10 or 15 years, rent the movie or read the script and see if your opinion has changed. Have to give you credit, though, for being open and going to plays when I know you are more of a musicals fan. It's good that you are giving the plays a try, at least.

Speaking for myself, The History Boys is one of my favorite experiences in my years of theatergoing. I'd love for everyone to share that feeling, even though I know that's both unreasonable and implausible to expect.

[uncageg]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 4:37pm

I attended the show with one of my best friends who taught music. He totally related to the show and how it represented the two teachers' different styles of teaching. I thought that was pretty evident no matter whether you are in your 20's or 80's. We conversed about the show afterwards for a while.

And I do agree about seeing a show or movie 15 years or more after 1st seeing it and getting a different take out of it or more than you did when you first saw it. Most recently for me, at the theatre, it was A Raisin in the Sun.

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 4:40pm

I didnt know there was a movie of The History Boys?

[mabel]

Posted: 6/26/06 at 4:43pm

Muscle, the film was shot last summer with the original cast, and it's set to come out in the fall (late November is what's being projected at the moment).

ETA: Thanks Margo and uncageg for chiming in with your thoughts on the matter. I don't want to speak for Zoneace, but for me, the thing that I took slight issue with regarding Smaxie's initial post on the matter was the statement that "the play would be lost on anyone in their teens and 20s." I know you went on to say that you didn't think it was impossible for a young person to appreicate it, but while I certainly wouldn't go so far as saying that I was "offended" by it, it did make me raise an eyebrow and say to myself "well, I don't know if I buy that."

I will totally concede that in revisiting History Boys, Long Day's Journey into Night, Doubt, Death of a Salesman, Raisin in the Sun, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Pillowman, etc, etc, years down the road, I will walk away with an invariably different experience/take on these shows (and I'll be looking forward to that!). However, I don't think it's entirely fair to suggest that there's something that's...that's somehow less valid (not valid, but still) in a 20 year old's experience/enjoyment/appreication of a play. Granted, I don't think that's necessarily what you were saying, Smaxie, though I suppose I can see it being taken that way.

There's just a huge gulf between "would be lost on anyone in their teens and 20s" and "younger people likely wouldn't be able to fully appreciate the show to its full extent." I know you've already gone on to say that the latter was closer to what you'd meant, so I don't know why I bothered to type all of this out. I suppose it's all rather a moot point now, isn't it? Oh well.

Updated On: 6/26/06 at 04:43 PM