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This story is by request. This is the story of one of the most entertainingly terrible plays I have ever seen. If you have already heard this story, please pass on by.
So a couple years ago, a friend of mine caught a listing of a werewolf musical that was playing as part of the Fringe Festival. She emailed me and said something along the lines of "This is going to be terrible. We have to see it." Thus, we ended up with tickets to Autumn Moon.
The basic plot was thus: A baffling prologue involves a slutty witch and a guy who may be Satan making some kind of bet that's hard to understand because the balance between the mics and the guitars is terrible. A young married man in current day discovers that his family is plagued by a terrible curse--oh no, he's a werewolf! The devil offers him a bargain to go back in time to the 1800s to when his family first got cursed. The plot ceases to make sense at all. He somehow takes over the body of his ancestor, whose evil brother has imprisoned an innocent gypsy dancing girl to do evil with. You kind of think that the evil brother is the one who got cursed, but no, it turns out that in trying to save the gypsy, main character dude in his ancestor's body totally brings the curse down on his on family and impregnates the gypsy with the next cursed member of his line. The devil wins or something. Noooo! The tragic irony!
Some reasons why this was so incredibly terrible, besides the completely incoherent time-travel plot:
- Not all the characters were mic'ed, but the blocking frequently had them facing the back of the stage while delivering lines. With badly balanced, overly loud music. The plot was incomprehensible to begin with, but the fact you couldn't hear chunks of dialogue here and there didn't help.
- This was a rock and roll opera attempt that sounded like it should have starred Meatloaf. The 80s called, they want their music back.
- The main character's name was Lycan. Lycan Thrope. Get it? Get it?
- Apparently, in a sweep of TERRIBLE IRONY, the traditional weapon of the Thrope family that they all carried was a sword of silver! Oh noes, the irony of being done in by your own family's traditional weapon!...who the hell makes a sword out of silver? That shit's malleable, yo! Also, tarnishes. A lot. Just guessing here, but I'd bet blood makes it tarnish more.
- Said silver sword? Was, I kid you not, a plastic He-Man sword. Wrapped in tinfoil for extra shininess.
- Most of the costumes for the "historic" section were obviously from someone's regrettable Goth phase. But the real winner was the gypsy girl. 1800s, remember. She's wearing a pretty pink corset with nothing over it. (Ok, corset are not outerwear in that century, but maybe she's super slutty.) A white sheet draped kind of bunting-style around her waist. (Random, but ok...) White leggings. (?) No shoes. (I guess might be kinda historically accurate, but not really working with the leggings, sweetie.) A giant floppy pink hairbow. (...what? 1800s, not 1980s.) And the white sheet is tucked into pink Adidas shorts. You can see the stripes.
So, we have, in no particular order: Mindblowingly stupid plot. Terrible names. Bad acting. Bad dialogue. Mediocre but terribly dated music. Bad blocking. Bad audio. Laughable props. Just as laughable costumes. It's easy to make a bad play, but it takes a certain level of inspiration to get one to fail so very spectacularly on so many levels.
We could barely make it out of the theater before the snark exploded. We walked back to the subway bonding with complete strangers over how this was the most hilariously awful show any of us had seen pretty much ever. (I did work on a terrible, terrible show in college that involved a show within a show called "Sperm: The Musical", but as much as that sucked, this was worse. I owed someone big time, and they called in their chips to get me to do run crew for that one...)
Hey, Chuckro, did I thoroughly cover all the awfulness? Or was there some pockets of awful I've managed to block out of my memory?
So a couple years ago, a friend of mine caught a listing of a werewolf musical that was playing as part of the Fringe Festival. She emailed me and said something along the lines of "This is going to be terrible. We have to see it." Thus, we ended up with tickets to Autumn Moon.
The basic plot was thus: A baffling prologue involves a slutty witch and a guy who may be Satan making some kind of bet that's hard to understand because the balance between the mics and the guitars is terrible. A young married man in current day discovers that his family is plagued by a terrible curse--oh no, he's a werewolf! The devil offers him a bargain to go back in time to the 1800s to when his family first got cursed. The plot ceases to make sense at all. He somehow takes over the body of his ancestor, whose evil brother has imprisoned an innocent gypsy dancing girl to do evil with. You kind of think that the evil brother is the one who got cursed, but no, it turns out that in trying to save the gypsy, main character dude in his ancestor's body totally brings the curse down on his on family and impregnates the gypsy with the next cursed member of his line. The devil wins or something. Noooo! The tragic irony!
Some reasons why this was so incredibly terrible, besides the completely incoherent time-travel plot:
- Not all the characters were mic'ed, but the blocking frequently had them facing the back of the stage while delivering lines. With badly balanced, overly loud music. The plot was incomprehensible to begin with, but the fact you couldn't hear chunks of dialogue here and there didn't help.
- This was a rock and roll opera attempt that sounded like it should have starred Meatloaf. The 80s called, they want their music back.
- The main character's name was Lycan. Lycan Thrope. Get it? Get it?
- Apparently, in a sweep of TERRIBLE IRONY, the traditional weapon of the Thrope family that they all carried was a sword of silver! Oh noes, the irony of being done in by your own family's traditional weapon!...who the hell makes a sword out of silver? That shit's malleable, yo! Also, tarnishes. A lot. Just guessing here, but I'd bet blood makes it tarnish more.
- Said silver sword? Was, I kid you not, a plastic He-Man sword. Wrapped in tinfoil for extra shininess.
- Most of the costumes for the "historic" section were obviously from someone's regrettable Goth phase. But the real winner was the gypsy girl. 1800s, remember. She's wearing a pretty pink corset with nothing over it. (Ok, corset are not outerwear in that century, but maybe she's super slutty.) A white sheet draped kind of bunting-style around her waist. (Random, but ok...) White leggings. (?) No shoes. (I guess might be kinda historically accurate, but not really working with the leggings, sweetie.) A giant floppy pink hairbow. (...what? 1800s, not 1980s.) And the white sheet is tucked into pink Adidas shorts. You can see the stripes.
So, we have, in no particular order: Mindblowingly stupid plot. Terrible names. Bad acting. Bad dialogue. Mediocre but terribly dated music. Bad blocking. Bad audio. Laughable props. Just as laughable costumes. It's easy to make a bad play, but it takes a certain level of inspiration to get one to fail so very spectacularly on so many levels.
We could barely make it out of the theater before the snark exploded. We walked back to the subway bonding with complete strangers over how this was the most hilariously awful show any of us had seen pretty much ever. (I did work on a terrible, terrible show in college that involved a show within a show called "Sperm: The Musical", but as much as that sucked, this was worse. I owed someone big time, and they called in their chips to get me to do run crew for that one...)
Hey, Chuckro, did I thoroughly cover all the awfulness? Or was there some pockets of awful I've managed to block out of my memory?
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Date: 2010-10-14 12:39 am (UTC)From:Also, dude, he's his own grandpa. That should totally have made a musical-number appearance. It is a travesty that it didn't.
The costumes and props and names have me practically rolling on the ground over here. I can only IMAGINE what it must've been like in person. I'm so very surprised you got out alive, without exploding from holding in all that snark to make it to the 50ft rule.
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Date: 2010-10-14 11:56 am (UTC)From: