Theatre Review: Posh
2016-Feb-28, Sunday 16:17
I'm always up for a good bout of eating the rich!
On Friday night,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
schoolpsychnerd and I went to the US premier of Posh at the Steep Theatre. I didn't really know anything about it beforehand other than that it was a British play about a thinly-veiled version of an Oxford club for young, overprivileged rich boys--apparently based on the Bullington Club--and that the original dates I wanted to pick were sold out. In fact, it was sold out until the last weekend of its run, at least until the theatre extended it for a month due to overwhelming response. And when we arrived, every single seat was full or reserved and the management had to take a moment to sort out who hadn't sit in their reserved seat and make sure that we had seats.
The play was great! I can see why it's sold out. The actors did an excellent job of portraying people who were used to getting their way in just about everything and never really having been told no in their lives, and thus having no way to deal with disappointment. Minor inconveniences like having a nine-bird roast instead of a ten-bird roast, which fails to provide proper symbolism due to the club having ten members, to the president arriving late, to more serious offenses--at least, from a certain point of view--like the prostitute they hire daring to have a code of conduct she follows and the failure of the pub's proprietor to immediately bow to their every whim slowly escalates the mood until they're ranting about the evils of poor people daring to think that they're the equal of their natural betters. Who are they to put on airs? We built all this for them, and now they're tracking shit all over the floors and furniture, etc. You know, the kind of thing that rich assholes actually say.
On the one hand, you quickly get the idea that you would not like most of these people if you met them. Their "club" is full of empty ritual and ceremony, most of which boil down to an excuse to get blind drunk, condescend to everyone around them if not actively mistreat them, and act like the medieval lords of the manor that they imagine themselves to be. On the other hand, they're not all painted as inveterate villains, though some of them come closer to that than others. One or two even have a streak of noblesse oblige, which, as much as I think rarely actually works in real life, is at least a positive character trait to counterbalance the people who are ranting about sick they are of the poors.
The theatre space was pretty small, with seats set all around a space that's maybe six meters by six meters. I kept expecting to be hit by a thrown object or have a wine glass spilled during the pounding of the table or the trashing of the everything, but the actors knew the limits of their performance space pretty well. It also gave the performance an intensity that I'm not sure it would otherwise have had.
And I liked how most of the stage crewing was done by the actors who were playing the characters of lower social rank. A good way to reinforce the themes.
It looks like there are still performances available, and now it runs through the end of March. I'd definitely recommend it!
On Friday night,
schoolpsychnerd and I went to the US premier of Posh at the Steep Theatre. I didn't really know anything about it beforehand other than that it was a British play about a thinly-veiled version of an Oxford club for young, overprivileged rich boys--apparently based on the Bullington Club--and that the original dates I wanted to pick were sold out. In fact, it was sold out until the last weekend of its run, at least until the theatre extended it for a month due to overwhelming response. And when we arrived, every single seat was full or reserved and the management had to take a moment to sort out who hadn't sit in their reserved seat and make sure that we had seats.The play was great! I can see why it's sold out. The actors did an excellent job of portraying people who were used to getting their way in just about everything and never really having been told no in their lives, and thus having no way to deal with disappointment. Minor inconveniences like having a nine-bird roast instead of a ten-bird roast, which fails to provide proper symbolism due to the club having ten members, to the president arriving late, to more serious offenses--at least, from a certain point of view--like the prostitute they hire daring to have a code of conduct she follows and the failure of the pub's proprietor to immediately bow to their every whim slowly escalates the mood until they're ranting about the evils of poor people daring to think that they're the equal of their natural betters. Who are they to put on airs? We built all this for them, and now they're tracking shit all over the floors and furniture, etc. You know, the kind of thing that rich assholes actually say.
On the one hand, you quickly get the idea that you would not like most of these people if you met them. Their "club" is full of empty ritual and ceremony, most of which boil down to an excuse to get blind drunk, condescend to everyone around them if not actively mistreat them, and act like the medieval lords of the manor that they imagine themselves to be. On the other hand, they're not all painted as inveterate villains, though some of them come closer to that than others. One or two even have a streak of noblesse oblige, which, as much as I think rarely actually works in real life, is at least a positive character trait to counterbalance the people who are ranting about sick they are of the poors.
The theatre space was pretty small, with seats set all around a space that's maybe six meters by six meters. I kept expecting to be hit by a thrown object or have a wine glass spilled during the pounding of the table or the trashing of the everything, but the actors knew the limits of their performance space pretty well. It also gave the performance an intensity that I'm not sure it would otherwise have had.
And I liked how most of the stage crewing was done by the actors who were playing the characters of lower social rank. A good way to reinforce the themes.
It looks like there are still performances available, and now it runs through the end of March. I'd definitely recommend it!
