I went to a reading yesterday. A Reading is an early walk through of a play
or script with actors doing the parts, but they haven’t yet memorized them, or
blocked them out. They primarily read the script from a podium and emote.
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| Example of a Reading (but this isn't the one I am discussing below) |
The actors were amazing.
I am constantly amazed by the level of talent that can bring a piece to
life with less than 48 hours of seeing it for the first time.
.
However, the play itself that bugged me. It was written by someone from LA and would
make a fine screenplay. So, it took me a
while to figure out why I didn’t like it.
And I am not sure I liked the answer.
.
Without saying too much, I will say a handgun is introduced
into the proceedings 2/3s of the way through.
And it is introduced in a “movie” way, not a play way. In a theater piece, a gun is almost always a
malevolent thing; a threat, a danger, a potentially violent act
personified. But this gun is described
as erotic, emboldening and hyper masculine.
All of that is fair – rules are meant to be tested.
.
But… up until this point in the proceedings, the woman in this play has had
enough. Her finance has been petulant,
manipulative, and selfish; and she herself is a normal woman with a normal job
and no time for this shit. She has
called an end to the relationship. But
then…. After seeing that her (wimpy) fiancé has committed a crime with the gun,
she fondles it herself (really I think that was the word used in the stage directions – fondle) and she
reverses herself immediately.
.
Suddenly she wants her finance – who she just kicked out –
to “do it” (not make love, but screw her).
She decides she wants a life of crime.
Pretty much everything about her character that has come before this is thrown out because she
and her fiancé have played with “a piece” and she sees him in a new light.
.
And it really bugged me. The
sexualization of humiliation, violence and death. How a pretty good and sometimes funny show descended
into the violent third act because “real crime sells”. The juvenile wish
fulfillment that a woman came become a man’s (boy’s) sexual partner by knocking
over a liquor store and showing her a handgun.
.
I can’t decide if it angered me or just sadden me, but it
stuck with me for all the wrong reasons.