Students were incredibly excited to be going to Broadway tonight- and through Times Square at night. It was indeed an exciting albeit confronting journey through nitetime NY to the centre of the entertainment industry. First up here is yours truly and James in the queue waiting for the opening of Waitress- with 32 queued behind us:
The performance was extraordinarily well produced with fabulous music and effects and beautifully acted. But there are some really interesting questions that need to be asked about the relationship between this production and the original film/text version. Did the music in this production, amazing as it was, sentimentalize and perhaps even trivialize the deeper critique of modern times that the film was offering? Did the play want us to become sentimentally involved in events which were ultimately not very wholesome? I don’t want to pre-empt any discussions tomorrow, but I think it is easy to get “sucked into” the amazing richness of a Broadway production and lose the necessary critical edge that we all need when listening to, evaluating, studying artistic practice….
On the way home there was this dramatic view of the Empire State Building:
Looking forward to the discussion in the morning!
MG
Michael Griffith: Home Page- Literature and Life Summer 2023 