Let’s call it an experiment.
A few years back I got the feeling my appetite for what I’ll term ‘modern movies’ was on the wane.
I went searching for an alternative and hit upon the idea of seeing live theater instead. Sparkling dialogue and amusing witticisms delivered by real life actors on stage would be mine for the enjoying.
Only problem is it hasn’t quite turned out that way.
What I got instead was a whole bunch of contemporary ‘issue’ plays. Do you know the type?
With a preference for overly long monologues, characters in these types of get-up are reduced to being little more than mouthpieces for a particular point of view on a so-called ‘hot’ topic currently doing the rounds.
Mix together characters with opposing points of view and whammo – you’ve got yourself 90 minutes of ‘woke’ – style dialogue and what might pass in some quarters as a story.
But entertainment? Not even close. Not in my book. Not in a lot of people’s ‘books’ I would guess.
Over the course of the last two years, I and all the other unlucky souls that have endured this ‘edu-tainment’ have been subjected to dull discourses on gender politics, climate change, the immigration policy debate, mental health, environmental responsibility, all manner of perspective on social justice and social reform, discrimination, and human rights.
And let’s not forget topics and themes related to First Nations people, their struggles and continued search for identity. They’ve managed to weave this divisive chestnut into portions of probably somewhere close to half of these often tedious plays over the time I’ve been a subscriber.
Granted, the Shakespeare plays (updated to include ‘contemporary’ themes and ‘modern sensibilities’ – of course) were always going to be a hard sell for me. But the rest? How else to say it other than it’s not really my idea of a good time to have to sit in a heavy-handed ‘lecture theater’ for two hours, squirming in my seat all the while, while I’m ‘educated’ on all and sundry ‘issues’.
Being a State Government-funded theater company, I understand part of it’s ‘charter’ is going to be shining a light on some of the issues of the day, ‘consciousness raising’ if you will. But this malarkey is too much. Too woke. Too UNLIKE entertainment. Too difficult to plough through.
I’d settle for an old-fashioned murder mystery, thriller or comedy… even a musical, just to break up the unrelenting heaviness of all this… this…I don’t know… ruminating blather? Maybe something like –
Sorry Queensland Theatre. There won’t be a 2024 season renewal from me. If I want to be across all the firestorms and issues of the day – which I believe I am – it’s far easier and cheaper to just switch on ABC radio or television.
With this off my chest it’s time for a stiff lemonade and something I know will entertain me – not try to educate me.
This 1977 masterpiece of a movie should do the trick nicely…
Ready for your HAPPY DAYS hit? Then better click HERE.
I don’t understand why nobody comments on things like this! My head is almost bursting at the seams to commiserate with you, Glen! I do NOT want to be lectured to when I’m seeking entertainment. Like you said, once in a while, okay. Sure. But not every single damn time. Noooooooooo. Kudos to you for giving it a try. Maybe they’ll slip back into some topics that are actually interesting once wokeness starts to die away! If people wanna know what I’m about, all they have to do is ask about my pronouns, and I’ll say whatever you want. I know who I am, and that’s all that matters! 🙂
Thank you so much for saying that Stacey.
In 2024 I’ll still be going out to ‘shows’ and maybe even the odd live piece of theater, but as far as taking out an annual ‘all eight plays included’ subscriber package, that clunker experiment is done.
In fact, I’ve already booked my first event for next year – and it’s tailor-made for me I reckon. You know how I’m the original HAPPY DAYS fan? (Of course you do – you’ve supported that site from the get go) Guess who’s touring Australia next year bringing his one-man memoir tour with him?
HENRY WINKLER – that’s who!
And I’ll be seven rows from the front in February next year.
https://www.qpac.com.au/event/henrywinkler_24
Yay! That’ll be MUCH better than the Lecture Play Series, lol.
I used to go to see an occasional matinée at the Bille Brown Studio back in the day as an alternative to my duties as a film critic. The trick was to see a classic—Tennessee Williams, Mamet, Ibsen. I was never disappointed in that fare, even with a postmodern (re)interpretation. But of course, in those days the luvvies didn’t feel quite so emboldened to make an overtly political battleground of the theatre.
I agree that it is tiresome, but it’s more apposite to note that you tried the QTC as an alternative to the cinema: Anyone who is still throwing their money away on anything coming out of Hollywood has, incredibly, still not the memo that the American cultural imperium is dead. We need a new literature, a new theatre, a new cinema, but it won’t come from ‘popular entertainers’, Glen, for they are merely flogging the dead horse for the last weak residuals of profit.
The New Culture will come from a priestly class of artists who are earnestly exploring the pathologies of postmodernity. In the good signal they provide as to what is actually going on, they will organically draw a popular audience to them, and then we will have the possibility of an artistic renaissance.
Here’s to the Renaissance!
Actually, just saying that word feels so…so… I don’t know… grand?