This full confession:
"(I'm a liberal Democrat, and very eager to see all the Trumps and their sycophants, and all the weak, scared, immoral Republicans and so-called "conservatives" get their just desserts, just in case you're wondering about my politics as you read my thoughts.)"
Is much appreciated, and not just because I'm in the same camp. I won't get into politics on this board. But I share your dismay about material that either aggressively preaches to the choir, or shames theatergoers into feeling insufficiently engaged in causes of the day. A current show in particular hits us over the head, with a chorus literally marching to the footlights with placards (yes, a demonstration technically organic to the plot, but after landing on at least the 6th hot topic, we're inured to the heavy-handed messaging). This tendency to presume that storytelling alone won't cover thematic content invariably leads to dull and overly schematic agitprop. A show like "Molly Brown" celebrates American myth. If the show's prior flaws were linked to an excess of historical fiction, hitting the chronology with self-annotating facts like a Wikipedia page doesn't seem a solution. |
