Birds of Play
In case you missed it, Bwog freelancer Thomas Anawalt summarizes Egg and Peacock, a theater festival in which ten plays were written, casted, and performed in twenty-four hours.
Shall I compare thee to a Latenite anthology? Thou art more zany and whimsical. And a tad longer. The Egg and Peacock playwrights were given starting lines, and had to hand off their plays’ last line for the next writer to start another another play. The imposition of the start/end through-lines didn’t add anything to the drama or the comedy, but only dictated where the jokes would turn.
The night opened with “Demographics,” (written by Chas Carey, directed by Will Scheussler), which was essentially a power play between women. Enter highlight number one, Gabe Miner in frump-dragg. The third play, “The Abolition of Compassion” (written by Matt Herzfield, directed by Ameneh Bordi) featured a terrorist, played by David Iscoe, who waltzes into a ladies room with thundering heavy metal and blood red light, but can’t bring himself to look at possibly naked women. The first act ended with Michael Molina’s nightmare-sitcom “The Merit Badge.” Lakshmi Sundaram and Katherine Atwill played convincing boy scouts and received some of the biggest laughs of the 2 1/2 hour quasi-impromptu play marathon.
Molina’s play ended with the line, “Last time you said that I was holding two sausages”, and this is exactly where the second act picked up. “Two Sausages” (written by Jonah Block-Johnson, directed by Mark Holden) featured more jokes about sausages than you’d ever expect or want. Overtly sexual content was also present in the elaborate if not rather linear “Ruses are Red” (written by Abby Rosebrock, directed by Jake Green).
Eventually, the marathon reached a point where the length of the individual plays started to become apparent. Fresh out of the 24 hour writing process, its hard to deride any of the plays for slapping the art of theater in the face or anything so dramatic—even the worst of the plays had its merit. Though it looked like the writers had fun with them, the rules seemed to limit rather inspire dialog.
Tags: egg and peacock, theater
10 February 2008 @ 2:32 PM · 16 comments
Um, I agree that it was a bit long, but is this really the best you could come up with? This was a pitiful and uninspired overview of only a few of the plays.
you mention the brilliant director of Michael Molina’s piece?
Abby Broburg? This woman is responsible for everything that is good about Columbia theatre, and possibly the world in general.
aka DAN MOTHER F-ING BLANK!
is pure, unbridled brilliance
The critic managed a four paragraph essay. Nice work…for a fourth grader.
What about the other plays? Which jokes fell flat? Which actors shined? Would you recommend seeing these plays if they sell videos of them? How about a REVIEW please?
that something like this is printed in bwog is not a bad reflection on the author. it seems that the author is a beginner in writing reviews and should be commended for being brave enough to submit this with what looks like 0 editing.
this is a bad reflection on you, the editors. you should be responsible for:
1) deciding what makes it to bwog. articles like this bring down bwog’s general standard (if there is one)
2) helping writers develop their writing and teaching them the techniques of their specific fields.
3) making sure that semi-completed articles dont make it to print, thus misrepresenting the event, place or person covered.
that is all
whoot! chaz twalter! you’re my boy!
This review is so half-assed. There was way, way more to Egg and Peacock than is reflected here. This review didn’t even come close. Not a single mention of Chas Carey stripping?? Or medieval porn?? Come on, Bwog, pick up the slack here.
If you thought that this review was half-assed, you oughta see this guy’s blog. He’s half-assing everything!
http://www.tbomb7654321.blogspot.com
never mind the poems if you don’t like them, they’re for fun
If you hate them, let that freelancer fuck know about it anonymously.
my costumes are revolutionizing the industry
that scene was pretty tight. Throw up your gun signs!! Wasn’t the girl in the black dress a freshman?
sausage play wasn’t sexual at all.
-jonah
he’s right
-mark
cockjaw…it’s when I take my giant dick and slap it across your jaw, giving you LOCKJAW.
look out for the crazy spanish aborted fetus! it will kill us all!