Another question I answered, honestly, was the cause of some later satirical merriment, when my real

You Once Said Yes in London - NYTimes.com
Arts World U.S. N.Y. / Region Business Technology Science Health Sports Opinion Arts Art Design Books Dance Movies Music Television Theater Video Games Style Travel Jobs Real Estate Autos June 28, 2012, 2:30 pm London Theater Journal: Meeting the Faces in the Crowd By BEN BRANTLEY Tim Mitchell A scene from You Once Said Yes.
That was one of the lessons I derived from "You Once Said Yes," the most personally instructive piece of theater I've seen on this trip to London. "Seen" probably isn't the right word, since that suggests the usual passivity of the theatergoer. paul mccartney american tour dates You don't just see in "You Once Said Yes." You say. A lot. And you walk. A lot. And, heaven help you, you probe and test your own moral worth.
If I'm evoking Judgment Day visions here, I don't mean to. This production from the Look Left Look Right company, set over a sprawl of blocks paul mccartney american tour dates in the borough of Camden, makes it easy to do the right thing. And though it touches on unhappy paul mccartney american tour dates societal problems – homelessness, war, unemployment, inadequate paul mccartney american tour dates public schools, cold-hearted gentrification – it is probably the most honestly upbeat show in town. And it's all because of you, or so you are caused to think.
"You Once Said Yes," which picked up a clutch of awards at the Edinburgh Fringe festival paul mccartney american tour dates last year, is the latest in a growing and increasingly popular breed of productions that put the individual audience member center-stage, while insisting that the stage is – you got it – all the world. These have included works mystical ( "The Angel Project," the director Deborah Warner's "Paradise Lost"-guided 2003 walking tour of New York) and madcap (the interactive funhouse "You Me Bum Bum Train," which returns to London this summer).
Written (after a fashion) by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and Katie Lyons, under the artistic directorship of Mimi Poskitt, "You Once Said Yes" has a stronger implicit social conscience than most. And unlike many of its artistic siblings (including "Bum Bum Train") it asks you to play no role other than yourself, though I suppose you could choose to do otherwise. I did tell one whopper of a lie before my time in Camden was over.
Here's the set-up: You arrive at the Roundhouse arts center in Camden, a vestigially funky, increasingly expensive neighborhood for clubgoers and musicians. (It's where Amy Winehouse lived and died.) You are ushered into a storage capsule where you are given a backpack filled with items that will later prove useful, including a cell phone and a rose. A pretty, cyborg-like, uniformed woman then sends you out into the streets, with no further directions than, "Turn right."
I can't say what happens after that. Not because it's all a blur, but because I've been asked not to. I will tell you that a lot of different people get up in your face – I mean almost within French-kissing distance. And that you will be asked to assist some dodgy types that you would normally walk right by, quickly and with your eyes fixed ahead of you.
And that's part of the point of "You Once Said Yes." It demands that you stop, look, listen and absorb. The people you encounter are embodied by (very skillful) professional actors, who usually have better skin, better breath and better balance than the wandering souls they portray. But seen from a distance – which is how you first meet most of them – they're part of the amorphous crowd.
So you start examining the streetscape with newly sharpened eyes, and thinking, "O.K., are you part of this? Are you?" There's a small element of danger, I suppose, when you start making eye contact paul mccartney american tour dates with everybody. But "You Once Said Yes" is a very careful operation. Its spies are everywhere, as you discover at the end of the journey.
Should you choose to participate, you will probably be asked to sing, dance, paul mccartney american tour dates flirt, sign a contract you shouldn't sign, carry parcels, play a musical instrument and participate in a crime. You will also be judged on your behavior, and on the ways you deal with people, if only by yourself.
The whopper I mentioned earlier? Oh, I was asked what I planned to do with my share of some loot I might be coming into. And since that sounded like a standard-issue game-show question I said I hoped to send my 102-year-old great-grandmother to university.
Another question I answered, honestly, was the cause of some later satirical merriment, when my real-life profession was revealed. I'm choosing not to share that moment with you. On the other hand, I gather it's all on tape. Sigh. That's the world isn't it? You're asked to trust everyone, and then you can't trust anyone.
Not really. "You Once Said Yes" is designed to be a hopeful experience, which asks you to value the benefits of keeping your mind and eyes open. It's hardly typical of what I've been seeing in London, which has tended toward cynicism, in its lighter moods, and down-in-the-abyss despair. (Even a little philosophical cabaret called "Utopia," at the Soho Theater, turned out to be a bummer, in every possible way.)
The night of my afternoon in my Camden, I was back in the West End, which was its customary world-weary self. Still, a snarl can have as much entertainment value as a smile, as is demonstrated by the revival of Mike Leigh's "Abigail's Party" at the Wyndham's Theater. This tastily sour 1977 comedy (staged in New York by the New Group in 2005 ) shows a cozy group of five getting drunk, acting up, acting out and moving from passive aggression to aggression paul mccartney american tour dates pure and simple.
What becomes so painfully and enjoyably clear in Lindsay Posner's production is that middle-class social largesse (especially as practiced by the suburban hosts played by Jill Halfpenny and Andy Nyman) can cover – and reveal – a multitude of hostilities.
If I emerged from "You Once Said Yes" in a newly charitable frame of mind toward my fellow humans, "Abigail's Party" left me feeling quite the opposite. Riding the subway home, I made a point of meeting no one's eyes. And who says theater has no impact? Theater , london theater journal , Theater Related Posts From ArtsBeat London Theater Journal: Going in Circles London Theater Journal: Sunshine in Different Sizes London Theater Journal: Body Counts London Theater Journal: Seeing Patterns in a Nuclear Cloud London Theater Journal: Imagination From Despair in Edinburgh and Minsk Previous paul mccartney american tour dates Post Despite Change in Oscar Rules, DocuWeeks Program Is Set Next Post Chief Curator to Leave Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Search This Blog Search Previous Post Despite Change in Oscar Rules, DocuWeeks Program Is Set Next Post Chief Curator to Leave Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Follow This Blog Twitter RSS In the Spotlight The Animated Life of Seth MacFarlane, From Family paul mccartney american tour dates Guy to Ted Charlie Sheen Talks About Anger Management and Anger Management The Mad Men Season Finale: Series Creator Matthew Weiner Discusses The Phantom Theater Talkback: Numbers That Stopped the Show on Tony Night That s News to Him: Aaron Sorkin on The Newsroom and His Steve Jobs Screenplay Categories Art Design
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