3,578 posts
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Post by showgirl on Sept 16, 2019 3:29:01 GMT
Wondering if others experience this: I sometimes hear about a forthcoming play or musical or read favourable comments here or good reviews in the press, but the subject feels too close to something I'm dealing with in real life. Or I go to see a film or play and find it resonates with my personal life, possibly quite uncomfortably. I suppose it's a positive comment in a way if I can relate to things that characters say or the events depicted, but do other members find this, too?
Sometimes, I'm sure, we wouldn't want to share which issue or event it is which has that effect, but on Saturday I found that two of the three things I saw fell into this category (the controlling partner in The Souvenir reminded me of a previous relationship and the remarks of the social worker in Anahera talking about people's inability to see the need to change their behaviour apply to my current one). After those unexpected reminders of reality, I was relieved to escape to Downton Abbey in the evening, which happily bears no resemblance to my real life!
It could however be that the subject relates to your professional life and that you feel you have enough of it at work, or that you have seen this represented inaccurately and it distracts you from the production itself - I've certainly come across that, too.
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754 posts
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Post by Latecomer on Sept 16, 2019 7:38:28 GMT
Yes, definitely come across this. Toy Story 3 had me in pieces as it was about children growing up and leaving home. Have to say I rather like it when this happens as I am a very “on the level” person in real life, so I reckon theatre helps me to release all those emotions in a safe place! Apologies to people next to me when something does come close to home and I’m sitting there with tears streaming down my face!!! I think it is also why there are such varied reviews sometimes....now I am older I can identify with different situations that would have passed me by when younger (Death of a Salesman is the one that recently caught me by surprise). Sometimes the play will give a helpful angle or different view point to something I have experienced, or just makes me realise that an event in my life has actually affected me more than I thought it had.
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4,156 posts
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Post by kathryn on Sept 16, 2019 7:39:29 GMT
I have purposely avoided all and any Brexit-inspired dramas. Get enough of that on the news!
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Post by londonpostie on Sept 16, 2019 8:14:44 GMT
I have purposely avoided all and any Brexit-inspired dramas. Get enough of that on the news! I found the opposite. It was impossible to begin to grasp the important issues without tuning out 24,-hour hair-on-fire, he-said-she-said BBC-led guff. One unintentional consequence of the referendum was it reached the disengaged, disenfranchised, disillusioned - swathes of the population liberal, middle-class London were happy to marginalise and forget. Letting them pop up on Question Time and periodic 20-second high street vox pops doesn't restore balance or stir curiosity.
It's as if liberal London media has been intent on reinforcing patronising, dismissive stereotypes rather than explore the substance of the majority vote.
I do believe productions like SWEAT make a genuine contribution to understanding the socio-economic-political landscape that mainstream news media actively avoids ('I've never seen so many white people', etc)
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2,702 posts
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Post by viserys on Sept 16, 2019 8:15:34 GMT
Hmmm, to be honest, I find my own "issues" very underrepresented in theatre and would love to see more of them. Sometimes, when things do come close to RL experiences, I actually appreciate seeing them represented and the writers' takes on them give me fodder for thought or at least a feeling of "I'm not alone".
I tend to avoid things only when I'm heartily sick of the particular issue because I find it overrepresented or blown out of proportion in the media. This can get irrational sometimes. For example I hated Follies, because I've been rubbed raw over the years with the constant pressure of "why are you single?", usually coming from people who absolutely cannot be alone and cling to terrible relationships with terrible partners. So the whole saga of the two central couples and their difficult hate-filled relationships, Sally's screaming needyness and Phyllis' inability to leave the man she hates just made me loathe them with a passion and ruined the otherwise great aspects of the show (staging, big numbers, the terrific "I'm still here"), etc. for me. So basically I consciously avoid any shows now that are about "couples' problems" because I'm just too raw and exhausted by the whole issue and being looked down on as if being single, even if happy, is still automatically worse than being in the most awful relationship. And yes, that might mean missing potentially great shows or hating something everyone else seems to have loved, but that's probably my only "too close for comfort" thing.
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111 posts
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Post by andromedadench on Sept 16, 2019 9:23:46 GMT
Hmmm, to be honest, I find my own "issues" very underrepresented in theatre and would love to see more of them. Sometimes, when things do come close to RL experiences, I actually appreciate seeing them represented and the writers' takes on them give me fodder for thought or at least a feeling of "I'm not alone". This especially resonates with me from 15 or so years ago when I started suffering from panic attacks but didn't have a clue what was happening. Without any idea who to turn to and scared to death, unsure whether I was dying or going mad but convinced I was doomed in one way or another, I kept plodding on even though everything felt increasingly scary and difficult, including the things I used to enjoy the most like going to theatre. Two shows from that period that soothed my soul were Harold & Maude and Eling. I had seen the film version of Harold and Maude some years before but I remembered it as a bizarre piece about a kinky old lady and an even weirder boy. So this was the first time I realised what it was about and it felt so soothing that I may have even cried a little. this production was all the more moving as the leading actress, whom I'd always loved, was terminally ill and in interviews openly talked about coming to terms with this being her last role and with death. I saw Eling a couple of years later, now diagnosed with anxiety and panic disorder but still feeling terribly confused by it and lonely in my troubles, so seeing a character with the same issue came as the one of the best theatre-related shocks in my life. I saw the play at least a dozen times and many years later met the actor who played Eling and it turned out he was experiencing the same problems at the time. When it comes to 'too close for comfort' theatre experiences, I can only think of one instance of feeling seriously triggered by a show, even though it was due to the staging rather than the subject matter. I went to see Julius Caesar at the Bridge (with a cheap, standing ticket, obviously) and it was all a fantastic experience until the war scene that was staged as a sudden black-out, air-raid sirens, detonations, blasts, stage-assistants shoving us left and right in the dark and I was suddenly back in 1999 but, after calming down a little, I thought well, if I could survive the real thing, I can survive a stupid theatre-show, but decided to pay attention to trigger warnings in future. Otherwise, I really loved this production. |
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655 posts
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Post by ptwest on Sept 16, 2019 9:57:08 GMT
Curious Incident.
The second act was far too close to home for comfort and it knocked me for 6, I did not see it coming. Feelings from childhood which I though I had long since dealt with being brought right to the surface, every event and twist resonated. And it had a puppy.
I loved it but I couldn't see it again.
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Post by ftfadia on Sept 16, 2019 15:24:50 GMT
For me there's a fine line between "someone else understands and I'm not alone" and "someone else understands and we all know everything's horrible and there's nothing any of us can do about it."
I love the former while the latter can knock me out of sorts...trouble is you rarely know which you're going to get!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 16, 2019 15:35:48 GMT
I think the Liberal Democrat Conference doesn't watch Frozen either the film or the play.
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196 posts
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Post by rockinrobin on Sept 18, 2019 16:31:39 GMT
I used to avoid shows that were "too close for comfort" but as I get older, I learn to face painful stories. I no longer want theatre to be joyous and glittery. I want it to make me confront myself, even if it's not always pleasant.
There was a time in my life when I watched a lot of plays and films about cancer, and found them quite cathartic. They helped me understand I was not the only one struggling with grief and anger, and that my feelings were perfectly normal. So by causing me pain these shows actually made me feel better.
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5,707 posts
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Post by lynette on Sept 18, 2019 17:53:28 GMT
Not my personal experience by any means, but I don’t think I can see another production of Romeo and Juliet. ( not seen a decent one for years anyway )
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2,761 posts
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Post by n1david on Sept 18, 2019 22:29:17 GMT
I tend to avoid films that I think will be triggering from my personal experience, but less so with theatre. In general I find I can provide some distance between what I see on stage and my personal experience, because I know that "acting" is going on, whereas seeing something on film sometimes feels a bit more like a documentary and so I find it harder to look on it dispassionately.
Only twice can I remember being completely blindsided by something in the theatre. We'd booked to see Constellations upstairs at the Royal Court and it so happened that earlier that day a close friend had called me to say that he'd been diagnosed with a serious illness. I thought that the play was fantastic, but at the end I sat and wept for a while, just because it hit me at a tremendously vulnerable time.
Tougher still was when I went with my Dad to 'A Play, a Pie and a Pint' in Glasgow. We've discussed this before on the board, but it's a remarkable theatre project that does new one-hour plays in a very social environment in Glasgow every lunchtime where you get a drink and a pie, together with the performance for £15. I'd booked to go with my Dad without checking what the show was, and it turned out to be a one-man show about the performer supporting his mother who was dying of cancer at the Beatson Centre which is the main oncology centre in Glasgow. This was two years after my Mum had died following oncology treatment at the Beatson. That was tough. The pints was drunk, the pies remained mostly uneaten.
So... in general I don't avoid things which might be close to my own experience - when I was younger and newly out I found "gay plays" at places like the Drill Hall useful to help me understand who I was and offer different ways of being the person I thought I was. But, just occasionally, something can get through the gaps, and when it does, it strikes right to my heart in a way that no other art form can.
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