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| THE HANG Last Night | |
| Posted by: sergius 10:34 am EST 02/13/22 | |
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| “What do you mean by virtue? What do you mean by good?” These sensible questions arrive midway through THE HANG, and they have a force of clarity that’s otherwise intermittent in this “jazz opera.” Taylor Mac favors mythopoetic speech and while this can sometimes be bracing, it’s more often inscrutable. The piece renders the last day of Socrates’ life as a kind of pre post-mortem, a “hang” where the impieties for which Socrates was sentenced to death are extolled by a ragtag bunch of Radical Faeries. Structurally reminiscent of HAIR and GODSPELL, it’s a splendid idea. In Mac’s hands, ethics, knowledge, virtue, and dissent are correspondent practices. Only from the margins—“queers” are the modern pagans—can truth be recognized. Visually, the show is a festival of whimsy and the score, by Matt Ray, is even better. It bops and stomps with great aplomb, making plain that a death sentence—and we are all so sentenced—can be an invitation to party. These successes makes the book and lyric fuzziness all the more frustrating. Still, THE HANG is inventive and daring. Somewhere Socrates is grinning. | |
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| re: THE HANG Last Night | |
| Posted by: AnObserver 08:15 am EST 02/14/22 | |
| In reply to: THE HANG Last Night - sergius 10:34 am EST 02/13/22 | |
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| Some of the music was good but the musicians were too loud and sometimes flat. It was often hard to hear the actors. The show was too long and its point was muddled. I expected Mac to be charismatic but underneath all the hair and flowers who could tell? I expected a fresh take on all things "queer." I was bored. It reminded me of Fairycakes. Wacky costumes and lots of rhymes and the classics mixed with current references don't always add up to a good time. I hated the smoke machine too. I felt trapped. I was thrilled to leave. I also thought it was odd to have all those musicians and no fun music playing while the audience was being seated to put them in a good mood. |
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