Theatre Review: Intimate Exchanges

[da]

We just saw Intimate Exchanges at Theatre & Co. It was unfortunate. The idea behind the show is that there are minor choices which lead to a very different outcomes- four places in the play where one of two things happen, and each leads to different sub-plot, leading to a total of sixteen possible plays, different ones played on different nights.

The first half was OK. It's done with only two actors, and they handled the many character changes fairly well. It was a somewhat standard British comedy: mixing of the classes, potential romance between the bored housewife and the young gardener, boor of an alcoholic husband, jealous maid, and so on. Things went off the rails in the middle of the third part, and there wasn't enough plot or character left to develop for the last part. Instead, it felt like a few cheap shots and an unsatisfying ending. (At least in a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book you can go back and follow a different path, if you don't like your ending!)

As I said to melted_snowball, this might have worked if it intended to be absurdist, but they were playing it straight. The playwright, Alan Ayckbourn ,could've made a strong statement about the randomness of life and the futility of a linear narrative, if it were clearer how the choices fit or didn't fit- or he could've stretched the audience a bit (the only stretch was making us parse the accents). Or somehow played up the (I think legitimate) sense of loss of only seeing one out of sixteen of the shows. Rather than just encouraging us to come and see it again.

Now I want to go and write an absurdist dinner-theatre murder mystery. That could be fun.

Hm, what else to say about this. I wonder whether it would've worked better had we gotten the chance to see more than one ending in the one show. So, shorten the last half somehow; and show two, three, or four of the endings, with just enough clues to figure out what the hell happened. Or- engineer a session where the audience from different nights can talk amongst themselves to learn more about the plays they missed; do it over dinner, so it's like they're talking about common friends.

Comments

[says-simon.livejournal.com]

I did a musical where the audience got to vote at the end on who-did-it and there were several different musical parts depending on their choice. Can't remember what it was called, although I'm sure a simple Google search would find the answer for me. I'm lazy.

This was my first and only year at conservatory. Because I was a doubler--played saxophone, flute/piccolo, and clarinet--I got to play a lot of musicals. That year I played A Chorus Line at my school (Boston Conservatory), that who-done-it musical at MIT, and Into The Woods at Emerson. I had so much fun! I love playing in the pits!

[says-simon.livejournal.com]

The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Neat. ...what year were you in Boston? I wonder if you overlapped at all with melted_snowball who was there from '91 to '95. (& we were both there in '00-'01).

[says-simon.livejournal.com]

Fall 1990 through Spring 1991

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Aha. I'll ask d. whether he saw Edwin Drood his first year there.

I've never seen it, but expect I might enjoy it.