Theater Jun 17, 2015 at 4:00 am

A Man, a Woman, and a Man Write About Yussef El Guindi's New Play About a Man, a Woman, and a Man in Bed

Three heterosexuals try to have sex together. What could possibly go wrong? Sebastien Scandiuzzi

Comments

1
This sounds like a great show and I'll go see it.
But what a farking asshole opening paragraph from Frizzelle. I have seen many great new plays, and many of those were also by Seattle writers. I'm tempted to list them, but it's almost as insulting as when douchebags demand you provide them with a list of funny women.
This idiotic attitude--one the Stranger puts in print!--is exactly why you don't see more new plays in Seattle at the big and mid-sized houses, and even fewer by local writers. Frizelle just saw evidence that we have new, amazing writing happening right here in Seattle, and that it deserved to be done at one of the big theatres in town. So how does he start his review? "New plays suck! Only old plays are worth seeing!" What message is that sending to producers and audiences? This very paper has, in very recent memory, shouted praise on several new plays. Does Frizelle not read his own paper or does he think the Stranger's recommendations should be ignored by its reading?
Local writers have been nominated for national awards. Heck, his paper gives out awards for theatre and for writing--new writing and new theatre, not just what was really good in the old days. Are we to assume that Frizelle thinks the Stranger Genius Awards are a pointless exercise in glorifying mediocrity?
It's as illogical a statement as it is disprovable.
It's also an asshole thing to say.
2
@1- Agreed. On that topic I look forward to the Stranger publicizing the Seattle Repertory Theater's upcoming Writer's Group showcase this weekend. Brand new work by local playwrights!: https://www.seattlerep.org/NewPlays/Writ…
3
Nudity and public sex is not my thing. I don't want to participate in voyeurism with a room full of strangers. The uncut penis (you meant uncircumcised or perhaps un-mutilated. uncut is a sexual reference) may be merely flopping now, but what happens next Season, or the Season after that?

The stage is a rare opportunity to create art, communicate perspective, and culturally share significant aspects of our lives -all via the rods in our eyes. We don't need to watch a floppy dick to know it's there. Or an erect one next season, or penetration the season after that. How can I trust that a rock hard dick will not be thrust in my face one of these days? And without creaming everyone in the audience. Perhaps the Theater is no longer for me.

Having said that, I also agree that local playwrights should be getting more time in our established local theater. Theater Schmeater has been active with A.C.T. That is a good sign.

Anyway, I hope the Theater continues to strive to bring us more than unsophisticated titillation and porn. That's what the web is for. The new way is not always the best. Have you never noticed how clever the movies of the 50s or 60s where under censorship? They had to work extra hard at subtleties, which gave so much more depth and dimension. Look at Tennessee Williams. His work was not from a puritan perspective by any means. However, he did not use shorthand by pleasing our more prurient interests. He added texture and depth in revealing the deeply damaged personalities of the characters, including their sexuality. I guess he could have thrown in a few sex scenes early on and cut out the entire second or third acts.
4
I'll add my voice to the chorus wondering whether Frizelle meant to insult new theater, Seattle theater, new Seattle theater, or none of the above (and, if the last, what precisely he did mean, because I doubt even a Derrida could have wrung any other meaning out of what was written).

@3 - Presumably, we don't have to watch a hand, nose, or jaw to know it's there; that we've been taught by Protestant tradition and/or bourgeois convention (the wishy-washy secularists' mode for preserving Protestant tradition without the pesky, burdensome God thing) that the appearance of the penis (flaccid or tumescent) requires voyeuristic intent doesn't really convince me.

Your mileage may vary, of course, which is why you can probably rest assured that even the appearance of a rock hard dick won't likely end the existence of theater where such sights are still left to the imagination; there's enough room in the form for all modes of expression, as in cinema, as on the web, as in the pages of literature.

I do admire the cleverness of a Williams, per your example, but I don't necessarily find him notably more clever than playwrights (or, indeed, artists in any medium) who please our prurient interests in order to take us to a different place in the story or in the psyche; it depends both on how that appeal is deployed and what is revealed (besides the cock, of course) by the exposure.
5
I went to Threesome last week. I think the reviewers here missed the part about how the dumb Doug managed to score the book cover shoot of Leila over Rashid because, in large part, Leila enabled Doug to get the work while obscuring her behind-the-scenes manipulation from Rashid. Leila also was the one who wanted Doug for the threesome mostly over Rashid's objections. So yes Leila, the woman, had a lot of power in this play and she used it to manipulate and lie in much the same way the Dougs of the world have done for centuries.

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