Humana Play Festival – Louisville's 33-year-old, internationally renowned annual festival that celebrates new American plays – was reviewed in the New York Times today.
Albeit, it wasn't the most very flattering of reviews. And I'm not entirely sure I completely agree with "Bad press is better than no press" theory.
I didn't see any of the plays myself, but these last couple of paragraphs of the review by critic Charles Isherwood really made me cringe...I haven't 100 % figured out why:
"Superficially the most upbeat and most innocuous entry in the festival, “Wild Blessings: A Celebration of Wendell Berry,” adapted by the Actors Theater artistic director Marc Masterson and Adrien-Alice Hansel from the writings of Mr. Berry, oddly turned out to be one of the most wearying. The mechanics were simple enough: five performers took turns reciting the work of this nature-celebrating Kentucky poet, while photographs of flora and fauna were seen on two large screens behind them.
Rural dwellers may have boundless tolerance for exaltations of the wonders and mysteries of the natural world, but the urban spirit begins to rebel. By the time this well-intentioned but miscalculated show drew to a close, I was more than ready to hop on an environment-trashing jet plane and return to the soulless city, having acquired a pronounced and irrational antipathy to fertile farmland seen on misty mornings and dew-dappled fiddlehead ferns."
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LOUISVILLE FAIL
ReplyDeleteI have no idea if the play was even good but that last paragraph really just comes across as some snobbish asshole simply trashing something for the sake of trashing it. Hopefully he's sleeping well in his "soulless city" now, douche.
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