Silly Little Country

Disrespect

My sister, in her review of the show we watched together last night, commented:

I also have a curmudgeonly comment about theatre in general: I hate, hate, HATE it when theatre or opera companies "update" already great works by changing dialogue to include references to the current political situation. Last night some of the characters were referencing the Bloc Quebecois and Belinda Stronach. Oh, please! If your audience is so moronic that they will be lost upon hearing a reference to Emperor Franz Josef I, then I would suggest your future as a theatre company is limited. And of course, if you hear a reference you don't get, you could always...oh, I don't know...go home and LOOK IT UP! You know, learn something.

Lehar/Leon/Stein wrote a musical play about a fictional place called Pontevedro and its embassy misplaced in Paris! Even the jokes in the original script would have required the audience to map back to Austria/Hungary; though it is clear it is a story of Austro-Hungarian rubes loose in Paris, in the operetta they are Pontevedran. Turning them into pseudo-Canadians demeans the audience and the original authors. And it makes much of the dialogue senseless.

It's an insult to everyone engaged. I agree with the curmudgeon.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 6:35 PM