The Pitchfork Disney by Philip Ridley
My rating: 4/5 cats
karen reads a play take 2
i liked this play a little bit more than Knives in Hens, but i still felt unwowed overall. this may be one of those plays that’s more effective seeing live than reading in script-form, because reading the introduction, where it tells tales of how the first audiences of this play were shocked and disgusted, leaving the theater mid-play because it was all too disturbing and claustrophobic or even fainting; future performances requiring nurses to be on duty, i just felt like patting it on the head and saying “aren’t you adorable??”
this is another play that was a big deal at the time, but now it just reads a little…shrug. it’s a gothic and quirky little psychosexual drama with elements of apocalypse and mental illness and sex and drugs and violence and camp deviancy with a fairytale vibe, flashy costumes, sexual assault, animal abuse, bondage gear, very long monologues, and on-stage vomiting, but it just seems like it’s trying very hard to shock, and twenty-five years on, we’ve been desensitized to the kind of shock this play provides, so for me anyway, it didn’t make me uncomfortable at all, despite starring twins, which are my own personal nightmare.
it did make me want chocolate, though. a lot.
i’m still on the lookout for a play that’ll entice me, and i’m glad i’m venturing out of my comfort zone and exploring the world of drama, but no winner yet.
3.5 rounded up.
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