The Black Rider Review in Los Angeles... 6-2-06

[eatlasagna]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 3:53am

oh man... where to begin... i'm still a little bit taken aback by this show... first.. a friend and i sat third row orchestra extreme left (20 dollar hot tix at the ahmanson)... after intermission... everyone in our row pretty much left and we moved towards the center... in fact, some people left mid act 1 performance... but anyways... on to the show...

personally.. i LOVED it... the music was fantastic... probably the best thing about this show... it was very folky, very theater, very classical... it was just a bunch of everything... also very sensual music, if you can picture that in your head... it was just the best thing about this show... 2nd best thing is the phenomonal cast... they do a great job acting and singing and performing their butts off on that stage... big props to Matt McGrath who gives a phemonal performance as wilhelm...

ok... so moving on... after act 1 i looked over to my friend and i pretty much said to him... "what the fu** did we just see" and he was like "i have no clue"... good music and performances aside... it was just weird "dialogue", weird direction, weird movement... it looked so experimental or avant garde or whatever you want to say... it's like the director and creators were like... let's see how weird we can make this play... there's almost no coherency to the plot or anything... but damnit.. i still loved ALMOST every minute of this show... it was so different than what i was used to... it wasn't some linear musical... it was a musical that forced you to use your imagination (not so much think too much) but it made you see what it meant to be a kid and what it meant to just act things out and look at the world and environment around you and react to it... i mean it's so hard to even say what the heck this show is about or what it is because it's a bit of everything... so daring and so different but only to those who only look at mainstream theater...

so i say if you're in the LA area... check this show out... seriously just give it a chance... i can see why you would hate it... but to be fair... you need to see why people like me are able to love it!