The Playgoer: Wooster Group: We Perform, You Decide

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Monday, December 10, 2007

Wooster Group: We Perform, You Decide

So I just got a fundraising mailing from the Wooster Group--yes, that is a Yule Log on their website-- offering me the chance to not only become a contributor but--once I do so--vote for their next project!

So much for the autonomous avant-garde.

Anyway, in case you're interested, the choices are:

True West
Trouble in Tahiti
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
A Streetcar Named Desire
The New Fischerspooner Show [???]
Branagh's Hamlet
or,
Other

So you can send in your $ to Wooster, or just tell us right here what you'd like them to be doing.

Or whether you think they should be artists and make up their own damned minds!

BTW: The "Branagh's Hamlet" thing I can only assume is an offshoot of the current Hamlet (aka Burton's Hamlet) which does feature a very funny cameo from the Branagh film in the form of Charlton Heston. I also believe the lead acto Scott Shepherd was also quoted as saying he originally wanted to include as much Branagh as Burton since he hated the film so much.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I'd love to see their interpretation of Streetcar. Besides Ivo van hove's innovative production, Streetcar seems constrained to that Elia Kazan/Brando naturalism. Williams needs some postmodernism!

Playgoer said...

Okay, well at least one friend has called me out on my ignorance of indie theatre bands...

"Are you unfamiliar with who (or what) Fischerspooner is? Use Wikipedia like everybody else.

Are you unclear on Fischerspooner's relation to the Wooster Group? Their MySpace page includes the following helpful note:

'Casey [Spooner] also appears as Laertes in the Wooster Group production Hamlet, which includes two original Fischerspooner songs composed for the show using Shakespeare's text.'

C'mon, we out here in the boonies depend on you for knowledge and insight. Don't let us down, man."

I am duly humbled.

Apologies to Fischerspooner fans everywhere.

Anonymous said...

Is this what Wooster has devolved into? A theatre company that spends its resources producing works that merely mock earlier productions? For my two cents, I found their "Hamlet" aggressively smug and self-satisfied. Perhaps next season, another company can do their own production of "Wooster's Burton's Hamlet."

Anonymous said...

We have had some pomo Streetcar and a queer pomo Streetcar at that! -- BELLE REPRIEVE by Bloolips and Split Britches in the early 90s.