I’m back from another stunning performance of GI60S.
The background to this year’s event was that up until a few days before the show started the online ticket booking site was showing it as sold out. A few hurried emails later (thank you TenMinJoe) and I had earned myself a free ticket. Fortunately the theatre-people’s “complete inability to do anything practical” didn’t result in a disappointing audience size as there were still enough people who had written a play or were friends of the people in the plays to put bums on seats.
As I may have mentioned in last years review – this is about as studenty as it gets. Almost everything had an issue, in-joke or intellectual twist of some sort. On this basis awards go to: The airport attendants discussing Immanuel Kant, (most pseudo-intellectual); Paris Hilton writing poetry (so forgettable I have to remember it) someone laughing to death (most pythonesque) and an entire five act tragedy acted with a running commentary (most appeal for English lit/Theatre studies students); a clever exploration of mental illness (most touching/mawkish depending on who you ask) and a relationship ordered from a waiter (probably the funniest idea) a religion made up of Elvis impersonators (most sacrilegious) and many more that I can't remember
If I had to give advice on how to get a play chosen for GI60S I would say that you are writing for the actors and not for an audience. This is clearly an “end of the academic year celebration” performance for lecturers and favoured students. This might be why some plays that we wrote, although technically superior (some successful entries lost me half way through – which is impressive considering the time constraints) were ignored over more personally pleasing or simply more fun options. I can’t blame them though, who wants to go to a lot of effort?
Almost in an attempt to render my last statement utterly false someone blooming well chose my play. Why they would choose to do a play with such a high probability of producing a cock-up is beyond me. Surely a play that required the title role to speak half his lines backwards must have been performed as a dare?
However the actor at the centre of my piece did an excellent job of portraying the eponymous “reverse philosopher”; it even received a reasonable response from the audience.
Speaking of the audience, I must admit that of all the performances we, the audience, were the poorest. It was as though we collectively came with unresponsive and bias minds. Some performances passed entirely without applause, yet any one minute wonders who were fortunate enough to have “light green t-shirt boy” or “purple t-shirt girl” in them were greeted with whooping well into the next piece.
I don’t know whether I should be pleased or unhappy that my play had neither of these actor-superheroes involved in it. Perhaps this is indicative of the performance being held on a Thursday around the time the students are migrating home after exams.
I don’t want to finish on such a down note so I will say that the initial idea of GI60S remains strong – that most of the performances were well written, all were well performed and that it is still a brilliant thing to go to see. Bravo.
All in all I was very happy with my one minute of fame (only 13 more to go!).
Now what the heck am I going to write next year?
ps: Break a leg New York performers and
Uberbanana!