from Dottie Ashley, The Post and Courier:
You may be shocked by the language, brief nudity and implied sex at the world premiere of Jeff Messer’s “This War Is Live,” which opened Thursday at the Footlight Players. But you won’t be bored, and you’ll come away wondering if you ever can trust our government’s intel again.
This is by no means a flawless play, but it contains some fine acting and is a refreshing attempt to show how violence abroad is tearing our country apart. The drama relates an attempt by documentary filmmaker Grant Blake to present the Iraq war as fairly as possible by personally witnessing what is happening.
From Nick Smith (he writes for us):
The multimedia element of the show is impressive and, for the most part, enhances the story and makes it more accessible for its intended Late Night audience. The video interviews shot by Witt Lacey are some of the most powerful in the production. There are no sets — just five canvases that are used as projection or shadow play screens. JC Conway and his crew create some great images with the white backgrounds, red lights, and shadows.
The Footlight Players have to be commended for putting on a compelling play that could easily have alienated the board members of a less tolerant theater company. Messer, meanwhile, successfully dramatizes events of recent history that many politicians would prefer us to forget.
From Eve Sturgardten, tourist friend of an actor in the play.
Let me tell you I was BLOWN away!!! I went in not knowing what to expect from a community theatre, and left thinking I just left mid town Manhatten. The performances were not only believable, they left me wanting more and by the conclusion of the show I felt a connection with each and every character. The mix of comedy, drama and satire was perfect!
From Will Bryan, lowcountrystages.com:
Unfortunately this time it’s a mess. A world premier play, This War is Live by Jeff Douglas Messer, was the winner out of ten submissions for new plays to be produced as a part of the Latenight series. Directed, as all Latenight shows this season, by JC Conway, this show lacks the humor he found in Matt & Ben and the entertainment he produced with the enjoyable Things You Shouldn’t Say Past Midnight. This play is long, it’s sloppy, and it is delivered with all the subtleness of being hit upside the head with a sledgehammer. This isn’t the actors’ fault, nor the director’s, save for choosing this play. Rather this production suffers from leaving nothing to the imagination and not allowing the audience to think at all. Every scene is up front, bold and spelled out in mind-numbing caricatures and not so shocking dialogue. The show gets a two instead of a one simply because the acting wasn’t bad.
11 Comments
John,
I find it impossible to believe that “tourist” Sturgardten managed to find her way to both this and Mr. Bryan’s lowcountrystages site to post the exact same comment.
“Joe” + “eye opening entertainment” + “BLOWN AWAY!” + “left me wanting more” + “a connection with each and every character” + “mid town Manhatten” + “perfect” + “None better or more thought provoking” = PLANT! PLANT! PLANT!
BY THE WAY, I find it interesting that were able to correctly identify this manufactured comment as “a review”.
Finally, why did you find it necessary to post not one, but two reviews of the play after it was so soundly panned by Mr. Bryan?
This seems an unusual tactic for a paper serving as the integrity police for the Charleston theatre community.
In any case, the production is worthless crap. See it for the tits.
John,
Care to comment why you chose to go with the positive Smith review rather than the negative Bryan review you first presented?
“The media and trust - we’re nothing without it.”
Lest anyway be DECEIVED - this play is poorly written crap, the multi-media aspects careless and slapdash, the dialogue and characters lamentably silly - all in all, a crashing, thunderous dud. Not entirely boring, but altogether predictable. In any case, there is nothing brave in this presentation - it is pre-digested pap, being ladled out to the local Dufflepuds.
Hans Braunshweiten,
I bet your face is as ugly as your thoughts.
=)
Have a GREAT day.
I tend to stay out of these things, but just as a point of information, Nick Smith was the assigned reviewer for Charleston City Paper for this show.
I always review for Lowcountry Stages, and when assigned, work as a freelance reviewer for the City paper. Thus Nick Smith’s review is the City Paper review for this show.
A review is indeed still only one person’s opinion, based on that individual’s tastes and ultimately their ability to view what they are critiqueing (not criticizing as some might think the term critic is derived from) with a reasonably informed eye.
An audience members opinion is based similarly. And Hans obviously did not like what he saw. Fair enough. The show is not for everyone. Hans, however, is in the clear minority based on general audience reactions and coversations after the shows.
If Hans has a hidden agenda because he is beholden to another theatre that he feels was recently slighted by the paper, then his overall point of departure is biased, and his overzealous need to pontificate here makes a reasonable person wonder what unspoker bur he has under his saddle.
One can also only wonder why Hans(and any others) did not feel compelled to stick around after the show and engage in a spirited debate there, as many have done so far (and I am sure still will).
This show, and production are not meant to please everyone. (If that were the goal, why not just run South Pacific every week)? If an audience member has feelings and reactions that they feel have merit, then I would prefer they come face to face with ANYONE in the production or theatre and defend their point of view and allow a conversation to occur. I guess it will always be safer to rage and roar behind the veil of the Internet rather than actually stand up for your opinions in the face of those you differ from.
I applaud the Footlight Players for their courage in taking on something new and something challenging that also challenges some audience members. Even those who may be more challenged than others.
As they say, “opinions are like ass holes. Everyone has one.” (some people just have larger ones than others I guess.
John -
I don’t have “deep feelings” with regard to the play - it is far too superficial and too ponderously obvious to elicit anything beyond a headache. Everything Will Bryan said about the show is accurate - whether you come to it from the left or the right, the play is a ridiculous diatribe gussied up with low-rent multimedia and skin.
In the interest of transparency - although I attend many local productions, I have no affiliation with any theatre company in this city. My reference to the past imbroglio involving the Village Playhouse’s use of a review in an advertising flyer stems from the distaste I felt for your wrong-headed schoolmarmish insistence that the company had attempted to perpetrate a fraud on the theatre-going public. As someone who hopes that Charleston may one day become the cultural haven it has so absurdly pretended to be for the past four decades, I think it is imperative that the theatre companies now struggling to stay afloat actually do so; accordingly, knocking the Village Playhouse’s marketing efforts - especially on a trumped-up, spurious charge that they were somehow working to deceive their audience - was entirely unwelcome, if not downright malicious.
In any case, I have no connection whatsoever to the Village Playhouse or anyone associated with the group. Beyond your own letter pages, I have no knowledge of any ongoing City Paper “feud” with the Village Playhouse that you believe might exist. Rather, I am strictly interested in the City Paper’s coverage of theatre.
Returning again to issues of journalistic and artistic integrity - I find it interesting that the reviewing policy at City Paper apparently involves your personal opinion as to who might be better able to appreciate and/or comment on what you understand to be special aspects of the production, rather than a simple, straightforward assignment based on competence, experience and skill.
In your response you state that “I don’t assign critics according to an agenda. I don’t assign them according to personal interests.” Then you go on to clarify that your reviewers are assigned “according to their strengths, artistic interests, availability, and so on.”
(By the way, is there any REAL difference between “personal interests” and “artistic interests”?…)
So I ask you - what happened here? Was Mr. Bryan too “weak” a reviewer? Was he unavailable? Did he lack “artistic interest” in the production? Or did he run afoul of, oh, “so on…”?
I ask this because you admit that you initially assigned Mr. Bryan the task of reviewing the work, but then apparently felt that “the experimental” nature of the show would be best critiqued by Mr. Smith. What was your basis for this? Why would you pull your assignment to review a show about the military from a career military veteran who would seem perfectly suited to evaluate the production? Did you think Mr. Bryan too right-wing? Or is Nick Smith simply more reliably left-wing? Or is it, as you seem to suggest, that Nick Smith is simply cooler and trendier - a guy with a taste for the avante-garde stylings of “mid town Manhatten” [sic], someone who knows his Ping Chong from his John Jesurun, and so better able to appreciate the use of video and photos on stage?
Look - there is nothing in the THIS WAR IS LIVE that was genuinely “experimental” or unusual or shocking to anyone who has been watching regular TV for the past few years. With specific regard to the use of multimedia, the techniques employed at Footlight have been around since the 60’s and are 100% old hat. Disney’s Lion King on Broadway is more artistically threatening, for goodness sake! Even an old fogey like Bryan wasn’t made uncomfortable by this “stage magic”, he was simply bored.
Finally, there is the appalling fact that Mr. Smith was chosen and agreed to review this world-premiere production after he sat on the Board for the Footlight Players during the planning period leading up to this production, and may have been actively involved in the selection of the play! Whatever his relationship to the work, the fact that Mr. Smith is no longer on the Footlight’s board is irrelevant - he simply should not be reviewing their offerings this season. Again, in the interest of trust and transparency, you might want to report on this clear conflict of interest in the front pages of your publication, rather than on this blog.
As for the other comments -
A.W. - Ah, if only Mr. Messer possessed your subtle but vibrant wit!
Mr. Messer - You correctly divine that I did not attend the talkbacks to which you refer. I can assure you, however, that as I walked, wearied, from the production, others around me were hurrying from the scene in equally bored disgust. That the audience members who felt differently - that is, those who were somehow empowered or enlightened by the show - chose to share their enthusiasm with the similarly-minded is unsurprising. As for me, I hadn’t the time nor the inclination to stay and pour cold water over the enterprise. Sorry.
In any case, I initially commented here not because I hated the show, but only because I found it interesting that “tourist” “Eve Sturgardten” posted the same overblown, breathless rave at both this site and the far less trafficked “lowcountry stages”. Her second post was a cut-and-paste job from her first, and both were clearly bogus, as has now been acknowledged by the City Paper. In any case, the initial presentation of this manufactured “opinion” in juxtaposition with real reviews from real reviewers does not constitute a high mark in journalistic integrity. John’s belated inquiry into the facts of this matter and his fleeting discussion of the fact-checking he undertook and his apparent acceptance of the given “explanation” is absurd. Simply put, someone in or associated with the production was clearly out to deceive this community with a fraudulent review, and, as a reader of this blog, I’ve been educated that such activity is a sin. As the leading voice for integrity in arts coverage in Charleston, I would think City Paper might want to ferret out the real facts of this outrage.
Perhaps I can help out a bit as to the questions which need to be addressed: Who is Ms. Sturdgarten and why should we believe her to be “real”? Who is the castmember she knows and how was it that she happened to see the play without realizing that (s)he was involved? How did she come to find the City Paper blog? How did she then come to find Mr. Bryan’s site? Finally, what are her real qualifications to be “published” in this manner - i.e., where has she seen these hundreds of international performances which compare so unfavorably to the zenith of her theatrical experience at 28 Queen Street? The easy answer to all of these questions is that this nice German lady is a fiction with an agenda.
John apparently hopes to sweep this matter (i.e., agents for the production deceptively touting the show) under the rug by simply announcing that he’s been in discussion with unidentified person(s), been given a ludicrous account of matter, and concluded that “so far I have no grounds for disbelief.” Again, given its role as the integrity police for the Charleston arts community, the City Paper owes more to its readership than John’s mealy-mouthed, mindless faith.
Finally, Jeff, your applauding Footlight Players for putting on your play is exactly the problem with the production: your suffocatingly arrogant impulse to present us with your myopic point of view without a trace of irony, self-doubt or introspection. You just can’t stop hectoring us, can you? The play challenges the audience, yes - it challenges our patience.
John,
What can I say? You are a gentleman and, although we may disagree, your points are well made.
Poor Hans. For someone who starts out to say he has no “deep feelings” about the subject, he is dedicating a ton of time and thought here going and on as though he has a mission from God of some sort. He seems to be getting excessively whipped up into a frenzy over a show that is not to his taste and that he should have walked away and forgotten. But he hasn’t. He’s spending a lot of mental hours on this subject. And for what purpose? Seriously. If I dislike something I see, I tend to move on as I’m walking out the door. It just isn’t worth my time to dwell on it for days on end and then write about it online and stalk the conversation. For someone who hated the show, he seems quite in love with his own words about it, as he endlessly tries to push his views on absolutely anyone who will read or listen. And that is sad on so many levels that I hope he can find or at least rent something that resembles a life and get on with it.
I also find it disturbing that he is so stern in his point of view and doesn’t seem to be allowing for the majority of audience reaction being positive to the show. You can say that there were people rushing with disgust and anger towards the doors, but that is so dishonest that it is worse than the skewed reviewer of the show that you are trying to somehow discredit. The fact that you would chose to exagerate the audience majority reaction sort of proves that you don’t feel your own point can hold up to real scrutiny.
There’s a great and deep irony in him not getting the show then proving it by what seems to me to be just a bit too exhaustive attempts to decry it.
He didn’t like it. Fine. I get that. But he seems a bit angry that he is in the minority of that opinion. If everyone were forced to conform or to think like him, then a show like this would never see the light of day. And I feel he is among the growing minority with out there that thinks that would be just fine.
I am actually surprised (and the theatre is too) that there has been little to no negative reaction to the show. Outside of this lonely corner of the Net (which has given rise to Hans and his need to hold onto the show and vent), and one other person, I can not find any of the masses of people Hans claims were leaving in anger and/or disgust.
You are entitled to not like it. However, this sort of epic disortation about it, and bending select facts in hopes of proping up your views or personal agenda, is carrying it a bit too far. And quite dishonest.
I should add that the show has been an enormous success thus far,despite what Hans would wish on it. My only reason for even posting here has been that I find it offensive that one person (Hans) is investing so much effort into trying to foist his personal views on anyone and everyone else. Disagreeing with a reviewed, a writer or a theatre company is one thing. Happens all the time. What I see and read Hans doing here is scarily approaching something that crosses the line. That should not go without comment.
Even if Eve did know someone in the cast (like Nick the reviewer knows people there) her view and opinion is just as valid as Hans’. But he does not seem to think so. In fact anyone who does not share his exact opinion simply must be either a plant a corrupted reviewer or simply stupid and/or wrong. And that sort of thinking is dangerous.
Jeff -
You are late to this party. Most of my comments have not concerned the show itself, but, rather, its coverage by City Paper. My largely tongue-in-cheek comments are animated by a prior dustup on this site.
You suggest that because I didn’t like the show, I should simply “MOVE ON.” As I mentioned, I was very willing to do, and so didn’t stay for the talkback on the night I attended. You are the one who called me out in your response to my prior comments.
I stand by my description of my fellow audience members on the night I attended. As a point of correction, please note that I did not describe their affect as angry (which would have been great,as that reaction would have suggested that something unnerving or unsettling had taken place), but that of “bored disgust”. No wonder: Your show lasted more than two hours and much of it was spent in the repetition of tired memes from eschaton or daily kos.
I “got” the show. It’s really not too hard, is it? Bush sucks, the war sucks, the military brass sucks, Fox sucks, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” sucks, conspiracies suck, etc., etc., etc.
BTW, what “truth” did you think was being “uncovered” by your intrepid reporter that the American public hasn’t already heard? And do you think a play so concerned with “truth” was well-served by your playing fast and loose with real historical events (i.e., Abu Ghraib)?
My biggest problem with the play was that your characters had no real personality and no authenticity. Did you have any qualms, for instance, about writing a lead female character whose sexual conduct would have made her too unrealistic for the latest installment of “War Whores in Heat”? (Yes, I know she was supposed to seduce your hero, but even the most dogged “me-so-horny” 20.00 whore conducts herself with more restrained decorum…) Look, I’m happy you convinced an attractive local girl to strip off on stage for my benefit, but shouldn’t there have been some sort of artistic justification beyond the desire to display her very fine physical attributes? (At least, if you’re involved in a high-minded enterprise of the sort you seem to envision your play being.)
With further regard to sperm-stained-sally (or whatever her name was), your coda seemed to suggest that her death (murder?) was more tragic by the fact that she may have been pregnant at the time of her passing. Was the couple’s casually aggressive doggie-style sex supposed to signify the existence of some great love affair that was leading to daddy, mommy and baby? Or ere we supposed to shed a tear because the whore didn’t make it stateside for her inevitable abortion? (Safe, legal and rare, right?)
Finally, what the hell does “The truth doesn’t have be to true to be believed” even mean, anyway? Dude - it’s not deep and pithy - it’s fucking developmentally disabled nonsense!
Jeff -
Just read your follow-up comment…
I sat through two hours of your sophomoric political bleating at the cost of $20.00 (i.e., $10.00 per hour), and yet you dare suggest that my postings on this public board constitute an “offensive” “foisting’ of my views” which is “scarily approaching something that crosses the line”?
I’m pleased to find that you consider my opinions and “sort of thinking” dangerous. Why don’t you write a play about it?
If you do, could you include a nude lesbian scene?