Why did I never get a fifth grade eduation like this?

With all due respect, that might've been the worst play I've ever seen.

Adminisk8or

02/27/2024

What sums up a week in late February like a random tech miracle, a bad play, and the game monopoly? ...I don't know the answer to that.

Nor do I know the answer to what happened last week. I had spent hours and hours on a project to setup a PBX phone server for a new client. While that would normally be a fairly quick and easy project (more or less), we ran into an issue as we were setting up their physical handsets. And to simply what was hours and hours of narrowing things down, there was an issue with SSL certificates not quite working right. I had gotten in touch with the vendor on the issue, and was trying to replicate it on Friday, when to my amazement and great confusion (though certainly with gratitude), it was suddenly working. I and all of my colleagues are still pretty confused on it, and the best answer we've come up with is that maybe it had something to do with cached certificates in browsers or something... who knows. But it works, and that is well enough!

I also took a strange detour this last weekend and setup my own open-source monopoly [like] server. As with most learning curves, I spent a few hours trying to do it the hard way, only to realize that A) I was SSH'd into the wrong server, and B) all I actually had to do was run ONE command. Yep. But once I got it up and running, it was great! Played a few rounds with the wife and my siblings, and it was good fun!

And then there was the least fun part of the week. I mention this part with the due respect deserved where it belongs. My wife's coworker/friend invited their whole team (and a couple of spouses, including me) to go see a small theatrical production at the local university- the reason being because they were in charge of the set design. And here is where I give my due respect- the set design was awesome! The play was called The Amphibian, and the whole set was made about as eco-friendly as you can get, with most all the decor and props being reused everyday items. Plastic bags, old clothing items and ropes formed canopies, greenery and wonderful scenery. And I'm going to say it one more time, because it bares repeating, the set was just absolutely awesome!

Besides the set, my wife and I agree that the puppeteers were absolutely great actors. It takes a different level of acting to be on stage in view of everyone, operating a very large puppet prop, and channel the emotions (and just plain motions) of this puppet through even your very facial expressions. Also, there was a Foley artist live on the stage who was just so crazy awesome!

Okay, now that the good part of the play is out of the way, let those who did a good job take their rightful bows. ...and now let's talk about the problems.

I want to be fair, first of all and say I think the very premise of the play was very good, and dare I say even inspiring in its inception. Since I wouldn't really recommend the play (and I think it's already done, now, anyway), I have no qualms about delving into spoilers, here. The idea is about two friends, sometime in the future, who each are facing certain challenges in their lives, and they discover this large, strange lizard in the woods. This lizard, they later learn, is actually an amphibian, which is good, since the water levels are rising and floods are becoming rampant. One of the friends, like the lizard, learns to adapt, while the other, who feels they loved and understood this lizard more than the other, finds it hard to adapt to the hard and harsh realities of life.

So, on paper that sounds really good- and it is, I think. But what I've left out is, unfortunately, the majority of what the audience actually sees and hears. Almost the ENTIRE SHOW consists of these two "friends" arguing and cussing each other out like sailors. Any good story needs conflict, but here's the thing- a lot folks universally agree that movies like The Lord of The Rings or Star Wars are great stories; but imagine if 98 percent of the screentime in Lord of The Rings was taken up by Sam, Frodo and Gollum bickering and arguing about everything. It would utterly ruin the experience, right? And I will be the first to admit that sometimes cultures that have become too uptight or at ease in their comfortable chairs can do with hearing a few swear words here and there, just to remind them that swear words, themselves, aren't some black, magical, evil incantations never to be spoken under oath of law. It drives me a little nuts, honestly, when I come across that kind of mindset... but there's a difference between firing a rifle of words here and there to keep things interesting and dropping grenades carelessly just because you can. It wasn't just annoying, it was outright distracting.

But maybe the worst thing about this play? I'm split, because I would mostly argue the bickering was the most annoying part of it all; but you know what, I can tolerate an hour and a half of friends screaming at each other. What pushed it too far for me? Two things, that are really one thing: depression, and the ending. Before everyone aims their comment-action pistols at me, yes, I know, there's no more popular and common place to find stories about tragic endings than in the theatre, so of course I should've seen it coming, right? And I really, truly don't mind a story that ends in a tragedy; it gives variety and emotion to the joy the characters experience. But the fact of the matter was that we never got to see joy. There were no high points, except when they find the lizard, and even then, it's pretty brief and not that happy of a moment. Joy aside, there was just so little comedy in the play that all of the depressing dramatic atmosphere of it didn't balance anywhere near right at all.

A good tragedy gets us invested in the characters, makes us really relate to them and root for them, and want to see them more, and even want to see them succeed. All I could think of for the great majority of this play was "please shut up. please shut up. please shut up", so that by the time the big finale moment came and a random gun that wasn't even properly shown on stage fired (seriously, it came right the heck out of nowhere), and accidentally struck one of the main characters right in the torso- yes, it was a sad moment; but not only did I feel little investment in these two characters, but the classic death denial scene ran on so long that it was actually physically painful. No really, I've never, EVER experienced that much of a want to get up and walk away from a production; and I felt bad when I pulled out my phone and just started scrolling through my news feed; but my self-defense mechanism was kicking in, and making me want to tune out the overly prolonged scene on stage that I felt no connection to, because it felt like emotional manipulation at that point.

And I could go on a VERY long rant about how when I come to a play or movie, I come as an escape from the drudgery and pains of life- or at the very least to learn something; and how a good story doesn't leave you only feeling empty and dark at the end; and how absolutely awful a few of the jokes were (I mean the entire audience was cringing, and that is NOT an exaggeration!). But I think I've torn into this one hard enough. And I feel bad doing so, because a lot of the time these plays that get exponentially less attention than most others can really be amazing! I've seen a few here and there that really made me laugh, cry and experience moments of emotion I still remember to this day. But the writer(s) really missed the mark on good potential, here. Ironically, the true tragedy of this play was the play itself.

And I'm not going to lie, I don't know how I managed to end on that good of a poetic note. Of course, now I ruined it by acknowledging it, but what can you do? Well, I have a lot of editing on a recording that has been put off for quite a few months, now, which I have a goal of finishing this week... hopefully. Wish me luck, and as always, see ya!