
Now, all this should not be shocking. Sex is all around us –
TV, films, advertisements, Eighth Avenue. The other day as I strolled
across West 45th Street,
I marveled as a large group of young girls waited outside the Al Hirschfeld
Theatre hoping to spot Daniel Radcliffe; right next to the theater
is a private gentleman’s club.
One of the many
things that I love about the theater is that there isn’t a lot of sex on the
stage and definitely not the gratuitous type that many Hollywood
films are famous for. So, I was little shocked when I saw The New Group’s production
of Thomas Bradshaw’s Burning in previews. Now, one may argue that
any one can tell from the play’s poster (a bare female derriere) that the play is
risqué, and after all, Thomas Bradshaw has a reputation for being a provocateur.
However, I could not help but wonder if
the following was necessary to graphically depict for some three hours on
the New York City
stage:
Sex between
gay men
Sex between
gay couple and underage boy
Unprotected
sex between HIV infected man and underage boy
Sex between
black man and white wife
Sex between
black man and black prostitute
Sexual acts
between Neo Nazi brother and sister
So, what did the critics have to say now that the show has opened?
NYT:
(Ben Brantley)
NYP: (Elisabeth Vincentelli)… [for] some audience members, disgust and boredom have definitely prevailed… features many moments that border on hard-core pornography. (Only a lack of strategic close-ups separates this play from XXX-rated films.)
NYDN: (Joe Dziemianowicz)Bradshaw churns up big ideas, but everything remains skin-deep.
NJN: (Michael Sommers)Sometimes all you can do is laugh at the preposterous goings-on.
'Burning' is a fetid slag heap of amoral characters whose lives are drearily rendered through indifferently-written dialogue, far-fetched plotting and graphic bouts of sex.It is one thing to provoke an audience but an entirely other thing to simply shock for the sake of shocking. Where is the art in that, Mr. Bradshaw, Mr. Ellliott?
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