A Strange Loop - Barbican

Having a bad day, so booked a last minute ticket to see this tonight to get me out

I just think the show is perfect and not that there is any real need to compare them but only because 'Crazy For You' seems to be getting better buzz than this show on this board, comparing them shows exactly why A STRANGE LOOP is so great. A STRANGE LOOP is genuinely challenging, outrageous AND tuneful...Kyle Ramar Freeman deserves the Olivier if he is eligible not Stemp. What a talent.

How can we 'Go Crazy' over what feels like a shallow boring outdated museum piece when we have this over at the Barbican?

Maybe because there are people who WANT simple good-natured entertainment when we go to the theatre? We're constantly bombarded with all sorts of challenges in the real world - whether personal challenges at work, in relationships, etc. or the general state of the world with pointless wars, climate change and inflation.

I really don't care for anything that's supposedly "challenging and outrageous" at the moment. And the fact that A Strange Loop flopped on Broadway seems to confirm that I am not the only one.

It's fine if you love the show and it speaks to you, but please don't presume to speak for the theatre community by using the "we" - WE all have different tastes.

IF we really want to go down the route of saying one thread is getting better buzz than the other, it might be handy to actually check that's the case...

I think if you actually add the star ratings up, you'll see that 89% of reviews for Crazy For You are 4 or 5 stars, compared to the 65% on here for A Strange Loop.

The comments about Crazy For You are also more generally positive than A Strange Loop, with more split of opinions for people who didn't like it for ASL than CFY.

So, it actually looks like 'we' think Crazy For You is a better night out than A Strange Loop.

Yes, this is exactly the claim I am making. Did you read any of my posts? My whole point is this board ('we') LOVE Crazy For You and not A STRANGE LOOP and I'm simply lamenting on this very point. 

Absolutely. My current favourite show (play or musical) since I started going back to the theatre is &Juliet, precisely because it offered mindless fun.

I don't want to be dismissive to Charlie at all who is doing EXCELLENT work and carrying the entire show, I just wouldn't hand out the award to him as easy as others here would suggest given the competition from Kyle (I am more dismissive of the show but I will try and give it another chance though).

An aside on the comparing of audience ratings for one work versus another: it doesn't really work. One show could be rated lower simply because more people were enticed to see it who were not really its target market.

This happens a lot with movie ratings on imdb.com. Some really good (imho) films get low ratings, and it becomes clear from the reviews people went expecting something entirely different from what the film offered. That's usually down to "bad" marketing. ("Bad" is qualified because it's presumably seen as "good" by the marketeers. They recognise that, if marketed honestly, a film/show will appeal to only a narrow demographic, but make out it's an uproarious comedy, say, and you'll get many more punters in. They don't really care that those people will be disappointed once they have their money.)

Even if two shows were viewed and rated upon by the same group of people, a group that was selected to represent an accurate cross-section of the full population, would you then be able to compare their average ratings as a measure of true quality? I still don't think that would be useful, because no piece of work is designed to appeal to everyone. Niche productions like The Band's Visit would fare very badly on such a test, yet that was highly regarded on here.

And what about shows that are designed to appeal to our baser, less erudite instincts, shows where to engage the brain is a mistake? I've seen some pretty dreadful films that meet that criteria that are scored 7+ on imdb, but you read the reviews and the common denominator is that the contributors are barely half-literate. Those films clearly found their market.

I could be wrong, but I think the juxtaposition you mentioned is a deliberate way of lulling the audience into one kind of mood ( although I don’t think I’d call the songs corny exactly, probably more ironically peppy) and then breaking that mood so strongly to bring everyone down to earth with a brutal change of tone.

I’ve seen the show three times now (twice in NY and once in London) and if you’re referring to the Inwood Daddy scene, it’s no less uncomfortable to watch when you know what’s coming. I also thought the lighting and blocking of that scene in the London production was a lot less subtle or at least it appeared that way to me. That made the horror of the scene even worse. I still can’t really decide if that scene is unnecessarily explicit - I think perhaps the dramatic narrative point could have been achieved in a less graphic way in both the book and staging.

I’m not sure if the audience clapping along to the gospel song was because they were unsure of the plot. I think it may have been more of an automatic reaction when being encouraged to do so. Every time I’ve seen the show, it’s only happened with a small number of people who stop clapping really quickly when they realise what they’re clapping along to. Again I think it’s a deliberate wrong footing on the part of the writer.

I absolutely agree with you about not being able to hear some lyrics. The songs are very wordy and many are up-tempo ,so it’s essential that the sound is crystal clear and the cast are really enunciating the lyrics. This wasn’t as big a problem in NY and I think this may in part have been due to it playing in a much smaller theatre than the Barbican. I had a similar problem when I went to see My Neighbour Totoro there.

I was wondering what the writer was going to do about the lack of recognition of Tyler Perry in the UK. I don’t know if there was anything in the programme, but it can’t be relied on that every member of the audience will buy one of those.

I thought perhaps they might put fliers on the seats or some sort of notices inside the auditorium to explain who he is. I know that’s a terribly clunky idea, but a whole motif in the show is completely lost if you don’t know this reference. I had no idea who he was when I first saw the show and neither did my husband who iis American ( albeit a London resident for the last 30yrs). I’m surprised the writer/producers didn’t feel there was a need to address this issue.

Glad to hear you enjoyed much of the show though.

I totally agree with you abut Inwood Daddy, it's supposed to be jarring. I just think for me it was too much - which I expect is the intention. When he gets up and hurriedly leaves I felt very tearful.

Tyler Perry - I'ts hard when a reference is so specific to a country, but I got the overall vibe. The audience did seem bemused, the American in front of me found it hysterical. 

Tyler Perry could as well be a fictional person and it wouldn't really matter - the context is fully explained within the show. I guess you have to wait for it to unravel a little but isn't all good art about finding the meaning yourself instead of blatantly telling you everything immediately? 

Some interesting anecdotes about the whole Tyler Perry situation below in case anyone is interested, featuring Tyler Perry, Whoopi Goldberg and Michael R Jackson.

www.justjared.com/2022/10/11/tyler-perry-responds-to-being-referenced-in-a-negative-way-in-broadways-a-strange-loop/

With respect I disagree with you, especially having seen the huge difference between the American audience reaction to the TP material compared to the English one.i don’t think it spoils the show at all, but finding the meaning in something ( in my opinion) is means something other to me than a factual reference that’s obviously going to baffle a foreign audience.
I wouldn’t say it was fully explained during the show either, but that’s subjective of course. After heaping praise on the show,,the group of friends I was with were all asking the same question ( ‘but who is Tyler Perry?).