My brother has almost always insisted I go to his (mostly) boring recitals and concerts because we’re family and it’s strongly encouraged that I go. There’s usually a bit of fun to be found in socializing with people afterwards, or at least in thinking of other things for a while. I may find them boring as hell, but then I imagine how he’d feel if none of his friends and family showed up when they could. (even when he’d recruited them for weeks beforehand!)
So go. Tell me about it later, since I’ve not seen it.
When I was a kid, my family always showed up at recitals or (on a couple of occasions) plays I was in. When I started college, six hundred miles away from where they were living, I really really missed having them there when I got into the choir and started doing those concerts. It didn’t help that practically everybody else there had family in the audience, the school being small and full of locals.
She did a good job, I thought. And some of it was funny. So it exceeded my expectations, but not by much. I expected it to be totally boring. It turned out it was only slightly less then totally boring.
The first act was sometimes funny, but mostly boring. The 2nd act was preachy as hell(It felt like I was watching **John Q ** all over again) and I can’t remember any of the third act, because the bordom had caused my eyes to glaze over.
Maybe it’s because I don’t have a vagina, but most of it did nothing for me. I’m sorry, I don’t give a **** what your vagina would wear or say or what you call it. I sympathized with some parts and I felt like I should have been interested. But as I thought to myself last night “How could a play about sex be so ****ing dull?”
It could have been better if perhaps they had changed the format and writing(which just confounded me at times, because some made no sense). If they had made it a musical, then at least it might have had some catchy songs.
To give you some perspective, I liked “My Dinner with Andree” and I thought “The English Pantient” was actually more interesting then this(not much, but moreso). The same day, I saw “AVP”. The fact I found AVP the superior feature is quite disturbing.
Unfortunatly, this morning, my sister asked me what I thought of the play. Apparently, either everyone one liked it, or was too polite to say otherwise, because she got rather pissy when I told her “It was mostly dull and preachy”. She then tried to make me feel guilty that I didn’t like it.
Make sure you say to her something like, “Don’t misunderstand me–I didn’t like the material, but I thought you did a terrific job!” That will probably do a lot to mollify her.
Heh, I am in the same dilemma. My cousin is in The Vagina Monologues this weekend and the whole family is going to see it and I am bringing my boyfriend :rolleyes: I am not really looking forward to it.
I have been trying to figure out exactly what the fricking thing is about. I have googled it but have not found much information about the actual content of the thing. I mean, is it going to be embarassing for me to be sitting there with my boyfriend, my brother mom and dad?
Yes. I’ll stand by my original statement that it is a good show, and I was not that bored (I’m male), but then, I’m a theatre person. But to watch it with your parents? Ouch, baby. Ouch.
I’ve never been so proud in my life. Forget vanity searches by typing in my username, I’m just going to start typing “penis ensues” as the search query.
Anyway, HPL, good on you for going - and sure, tell her she was great… if she persists in trying to get you to love the play… well… take her to a wrestling match or something really manly that she won’t like or “get”, or would find boring. Enforce some karma, baybee.
Heh—maybe, but that doesn’t always work. Being in a play sort of requires you to be committed to it, and for some actors and some plays that means being committed to its ideas and style, too. It can be hard to sort out what you really think of the material until you’ve had some distance from it.
I didn’t read the original thread, but now that it’s all stale and stuff—I wouldn’t have told you to go. I got a BFA in acting and tried to be a professional after graduating, and my folks and sister went to see me in many plays, sometimes driving 300 miles to do so. I think I prefer not having them in the audience. It was wonderful, very loving, of them to support me, but it was kind of distracting to have them there. I was rarely in plays they would enjoy for the plays’ sake—you hope for an audience that’s enjoying the performance. And invariably afterwards my mom would point out some logical problem in the script or the blocking, because that’s what she notices… of course if your sister actually wanted you there, that’s different.
BTW, if anyone’s going to a performance as a duty to a loved one, read/nap/listen to NIN with great caution. Your friend or relative may not be onstage for long, but if he or she is on speaking terms with any of the other cast members or crew, he or she will probably hear about “that asshole who snored all through Act Two!” Believe me, unless it’s an opera house or a stadium, you can’t get away with it.
Sounds like you’re off the hook now. Any future attempt into guilting you into attending an event/activity that you’re reluctant about, just say “Remember how mad you got when I told you I didn’t like the Vagina thing? Well, I don’t want you to get mad at me again, so I think I should probably pass this time. Good Luck!”
