The Revenger's Tragedy

09/06/08, Royal Exchange.

Went to see The Revenger's Tragedy at the Royal Exchange last night. It has received generally bad reviews. I really enjoyed it.

GO READ ABOUT IT

"A vivid and often violent portrayal of lust and ambition." Quite an odd production, slightly mad. I mean, actually mad. But fun for it. With some bizarre contemporary dance interludes, two men dancing with a corpse, two actual NAKED old people having sex in a shower, people dressed as court jesters dancing around stabbing people, fallen women, a woman who was a VIRGIN, men motivated by madness and rationality at once, an old order dying by the incestuous dagger... it was entertaining enough for my £4 theatre ticket!

A couple of STINK moments - post-modern additions, such as a jester coming on stage and the director running out going, 'no, no.. your part has been cut', 'what??', 'its been cut, see?' [she shows a clipboard to the audience], 'I can't believe this, I've spent twenty minutes putting this costume on!!' - It was lazy, and unfunny. 'F**king Genius!!' as a tedious student may say. He could've at least got his PART out and she cut it with a dagger while we all sat watching it bleed on to the stage. That'd be something.

Secondly, the lead character and his brother were adjusting a corpse and a soundman was making creaking noises to coincide with the movements. After they stopped adjusting the body the soundman did an extra big creak. The two characters on stage look up at the soundman and go, 'Alright! Leave it out.' Lazy, not executed in a funny way. The JOKE in this case would have been that the *body* creaks after they stopped adjusting it and the characters get the willies - executed well it would be amusing and wouldn't have taken the audience out of the onstage world, that they'd otherwise worked hard to create. PoMo seems like such a lazy route to go for a little laugh. Get bent PoMo!

Some AWESOME things: lots of stabbings and some grizzly executions. A Duke having his tongue cut off (and slapped down centre stage, blood oozing out of it). And perhaps the best throat-slitting I've ever seen.

Apparently some critics deem this bad taste 'in the current climate'. Speaking of internet beheadings, BEHEAD THAT CRITIC! Or at least cut his chin off so he has nothing to stroke! Even more lazy than the PoMo jokes are critics who constantly strain themselves to try and make the current art world subject to obvious global real world events. How many times per episode is the term 9/11 used on an arts show like Newsnight Review?

'Such-a-body has just released a sculpture that reinterprets the famous classical bust of Socrates'
'I feel this really responds to the world as it is post-9/11.'
'Yes I think this is really an expression of our post-9/11 anxiety.'
'I just think, yeah 9/11.'

Make some effort! And by that I mean get some freakin' IDEAS already. You lazy beardo-chin-strokers! The world POST 9/11 is the same as PRE 9/11 in all but the media and the superficial post-modernists who are quite titillated by the scale of the spectacle and take *that* as being somehow meaningful in itself. It isn't. YOU isn't.

Anyway, as I was saying... I was quite taken by The Duchess's 3rd son, Juniour Brother. Nice trainers, white shiny hi-tops. Well dressed. Juniour Brother, hmm, I even like the name. Met a bloody end though.