A lanky shape shifter somehow conjures a moustache on his face before turning into David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust. A mysterious (pronounced: just plain confusing) man in a cliché Bela Lugosi cape is paralysed (or maybe not) by a photograph that may (or may not) depict a stranger’s father. And a young girl may (or may not) have been attacked by a vampire.
Confused yet?
Welcome to Brink Productions’ Harbinger.
Let me back track.
A few weeks ago, my partner and I, went to see a performance of Harbinger. I have no real qualms with the performance of the actors or the minimalistic stage. As for what the performance was actually about, I’m still trying to decipher. Not only is the blurb on the Harbinger flyer vague and downright confusing, the “boy meets girl, girl eats boy” tagline is somewhat misleading. In fact, the first paragraph pretty much sums up what unfolds on stage. No, really.
By the end of the performance, I was left utterly baffled. An old drama friend I had studied theatre with for years, who also happens to be some sort of physicist, also couldn't decipher what just happened, shuffling along the seats to ask me if any of it made sense to me. My partner, who is involved in the arts and is usually quite philosophical when it comes to meanings and metaphors, seemed just as confused as I was.
Even after staying to listen to the subsequent Q&A session in the hopes of being enlightened, I'm pretty sure the only conclusion we could discern from the director's and performers' vague feedback was that Harbinger is about as confusing as being punched in the face by a giraffe. It was during this discussion between the cast and the audience that we learnt that Harbinger was actually a quick ‘we need a play’ commission piece written over just a few months, with no established theme, topic or message at the time of its creation.
And it certainly shows.
Running into my old Drama teacher and his wife, I asked him what his take was. Being the kind of guy who usually goes into theatre in great detail, I began to suspect the play itself was severe bollocks when my former teacher merely quoted the director's cryptic regurgitation that “a good performance is one that leaves you with more questions than answers.”
Well, pardon me for calling: “Bullshit.”
The Goat or Who is Sylvia leaves you with questions. The movie Inception leaves you with questions. Even Oprah’s Bookclub leaves you with questions.
Harbinger only leaves you with one: “What the fuck just happened?”
The absurdist play Waiting for Godot prompts many interpretations. The Bald Soprano mocks the concepts of language. Harbinger is just so random and void of any discernible metaphor, point or plot that I seriously doubt that the piece, with all of its inconsistencies and slap-dash excuse for a storyline, has any real meaning at all. In my opinion, Harbinger is nothing more than a failed, try-hard attempt at sounding 'deep'.
What really concerns me is that every article I have read and most of the audience feedback I have heard online has praised the piece as some sort of dazzling and enriching masterpiece with some hidden meaning to live itself - although, ironically, no one actually mentions what the play is actually about.
Either there’s something seriously wrong with me and my intelligence is severely impaired, or everyone else is just trying to appear sophisticated and open-minded by playing along and ignoring the fact that the Emperor's walking down the street naked.
Seriously, explain to me the big mystical metaphors and meanings buried deep into the dialogue. Really, I’m genuinely curious. Better yet, admit this play has no meaning at all and the script was just some trash written early one morning between the hours of 2am and 5am between sips of Mount Gay rum and reruns of The Vampire Diaries. But don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining, don’t tell me the Emperor is wearing pants that I'm too stupid to see and don’t give me some completely vague response about how fantastic Harbinger is to appear refined and coincide with everyone else’s view if you can’t back up the claim with some explanation or personal opinion.
Maybe I’m not cultured. Maybe I’m not particularly deep or profound or philosophical. Still, I’m not ashamed to play the part of the child from the tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes, turn to the guy next to me and ask: “Hey, why isn’t Harbinger wearing any pants?”
Confused yet?
Welcome to Brink Productions’ Harbinger.
Let me back track.
A few weeks ago, my partner and I, went to see a performance of Harbinger. I have no real qualms with the performance of the actors or the minimalistic stage. As for what the performance was actually about, I’m still trying to decipher. Not only is the blurb on the Harbinger flyer vague and downright confusing, the “boy meets girl, girl eats boy” tagline is somewhat misleading. In fact, the first paragraph pretty much sums up what unfolds on stage. No, really.
By the end of the performance, I was left utterly baffled. An old drama friend I had studied theatre with for years, who also happens to be some sort of physicist, also couldn't decipher what just happened, shuffling along the seats to ask me if any of it made sense to me. My partner, who is involved in the arts and is usually quite philosophical when it comes to meanings and metaphors, seemed just as confused as I was.
Even after staying to listen to the subsequent Q&A session in the hopes of being enlightened, I'm pretty sure the only conclusion we could discern from the director's and performers' vague feedback was that Harbinger is about as confusing as being punched in the face by a giraffe. It was during this discussion between the cast and the audience that we learnt that Harbinger was actually a quick ‘we need a play’ commission piece written over just a few months, with no established theme, topic or message at the time of its creation.
And it certainly shows.
Running into my old Drama teacher and his wife, I asked him what his take was. Being the kind of guy who usually goes into theatre in great detail, I began to suspect the play itself was severe bollocks when my former teacher merely quoted the director's cryptic regurgitation that “a good performance is one that leaves you with more questions than answers.”
Well, pardon me for calling: “Bullshit.”
The Goat or Who is Sylvia leaves you with questions. The movie Inception leaves you with questions. Even Oprah’s Bookclub leaves you with questions.
Harbinger only leaves you with one: “What the fuck just happened?”
The absurdist play Waiting for Godot prompts many interpretations. The Bald Soprano mocks the concepts of language. Harbinger is just so random and void of any discernible metaphor, point or plot that I seriously doubt that the piece, with all of its inconsistencies and slap-dash excuse for a storyline, has any real meaning at all. In my opinion, Harbinger is nothing more than a failed, try-hard attempt at sounding 'deep'.
What really concerns me is that every article I have read and most of the audience feedback I have heard online has praised the piece as some sort of dazzling and enriching masterpiece with some hidden meaning to live itself - although, ironically, no one actually mentions what the play is actually about.
Either there’s something seriously wrong with me and my intelligence is severely impaired, or everyone else is just trying to appear sophisticated and open-minded by playing along and ignoring the fact that the Emperor's walking down the street naked.
Seriously, explain to me the big mystical metaphors and meanings buried deep into the dialogue. Really, I’m genuinely curious. Better yet, admit this play has no meaning at all and the script was just some trash written early one morning between the hours of 2am and 5am between sips of Mount Gay rum and reruns of The Vampire Diaries. But don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining, don’t tell me the Emperor is wearing pants that I'm too stupid to see and don’t give me some completely vague response about how fantastic Harbinger is to appear refined and coincide with everyone else’s view if you can’t back up the claim with some explanation or personal opinion.
Maybe I’m not cultured. Maybe I’m not particularly deep or profound or philosophical. Still, I’m not ashamed to play the part of the child from the tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes, turn to the guy next to me and ask: “Hey, why isn’t Harbinger wearing any pants?”
No comments:
Post a Comment