Here’s AllenInk’s video from the Works last night, Ethan Rose and Au.
Tonight at the Works, Occurance, hosted by Reggie Watts. Which I will be attending, because damned if I don’t love the guy, even though my critical confidence was shaken to the core this morning by an email from Watts’ co-producer informing me that my review of Transition was “unsuccessful in many ways–like most reviewers, [I] assumed that subjective generalities about [my] specific experience (and assumptions about the rest of the audience’s unknowable experience) would suffice as actual criticism.” I believe in the performing art world, that’s what’s known as a “burn.” Sigh. Anybody else catch Transition? Thoughts?
Are they being being fair to you though? What is criticsm if it isn’t the writer’s subjective generalities, backed by a clear line of reasoning of course. Anything else would just be a calender listing or advertisement. The response to your review says more about the artist’s hostility to outside assessment any than failing you had as writer. I think highly of your witting that I have seen.
I went to that show, and it reminded me why I really could care less for performance art. Or maybe I have seen too much of it, and am just overloaded. No, I think it is stupid 99% of the time, and I have to remember to stay away from it. This years TBA catalogue, not one thing I really wanted to see at all, just went to Reggie’s show as a friend told me he was good, but the friend also said the same thing that you did, that last years show, and other performances he had seen by Reggie were way better, and why did Reggie feel he had to add all these different theatre parts to his one man genius.
waste of my time really.
The idiot who wrote you about your criticism, as Fassbinder said
“As long as they spell your name right,that is all that matters.”
Despite having some excellent elements in it, Transition was a really mixed bag. I’ve seen Watts perform twice before–both times, it was just him onstage, and both times, my jaw pretty much hit the goddamn floor. But after Transition, I had no idea what I was supposed to take away from the show–there are a lot of ideas and a lot of themes and a lot of ramblings in there, but the production felt disjointed and superfluous. In fact, the only parts of the show I clearly remember are Watts’ vocal/beatboxing/looping segments–which are why I went in the first place, and what, throughout the performance, I kept hoping there’d be more of.
Wait–I also remember the Teen Wolf part! But I’m still not sure what I’m supposed to get from seeing one of its scenes performed live–and then, a short while later, as if the production’s producers were afraid no one would recognize what the scene was from, having to watch the entire scene again, this time the actual movie version, projected on a screen. God knows I love Teen Wolf, so I’ll never oppose its inclusion in performance art, but I can’t really justify its presence, either: After two days of thinking about it, I still can’t figure out how that (and a bunch of other things in the show) wasn’t just a goofy but ultimately irrelevant way to spend some time.