So when I saw an ad for this Brony play on the train I texted my cousins (J's surviving three sisters) and asked if they might be interested. They agreed, and we all met up Sunday (plus my sister) for the matinee at Theater Wit. I just absolutely loved this play. I will admit I have specific emotional bias (as alluded to above), but who doesn't to what becomes their favorite plays?
The set for Theater Wit's production was immediately inviting--a living room Brony'd out with rainbow curtains and toy ponies and lest we forget, a plate of strawberry frosted poptarts (which, if you have ever seen my thigh, you know mean a lot to me). Plus, every audience member got a teeny plastic pony! How adorable and perfect. "We're all in this weird club now." Meanwhile, that one bright room is surrounded by rust belt backdrop--a foreshadowing of how their utopia can't stay enclosed forever.
The play begins with a long monologue from Shawn, a scrawny white guy dressed in a pink horse costume, about how he used to struggle to find his self/masculinity (citing Mad Men, no less) and how once he joined the Pony club, he felt free to be himself. The other present members, also in their sparkles and tutus, nod, agree, and speak with enthusiasm as well. And then the first "huh" happens. A nervous woman confesses she thought this was a meet-up for 9/11 Truthers. She leaves. The group, clad in false hooves, call her "the crazy lady." Another Brony shows up concerned about the state of a mutual friend, who was grabbed by "Neighborhood Watch." And we learn about this town's interesting predicament with unidentified, black clad, trucker hat wearing, flashlight-wielding "helper" community vigilantes. So in scene one it's all laid out there--weird uprising secretive group, adorable secretive group, ultra counter-culture secretive group. Theme: secrets, y'all. This theme is the bedrock for the rest of the piece--beginning with the simple enough conversation of "Should we take down our Meetup online page and risk people we don't want getting in at the expense of possibly locking out a future welcomed member?" to a full-blown secret head council within a head council overthrow that results in the injury/killing of dozens of homeless folk in the town. We love secrecy, but it ruins us from the inside out. We can never stop second guessing what is real inside a secret space. That will never not be true.
A few more ideas: I loved the Crucible parallel to the Act I closing sign, which puts each character through the anxiety of signing their name to something they don't necessarily believe for the benefit of another. The snacks were not lost on this little dramaturgical theatre-goer! At the set of the show the Bronies have the poptarts. At the next meeting, rainbow cookies. And then as their utopia begins to deflate, a bowl of white popcorn. Finally, a crinkled bag of Cheetos. Gross, unhealthy, fast and cheap, perhaps even symbolic of Tr*mp (as some people call him The Cheeto). To me the most engaging moment in the whole play was Shawn's speech (long gone from wearing pink fuzz and back to his "manly" fedora) once he was at the top of the Antelope Party. He plagiarizes from his girlfriend who is desperate for power in an organization her father once ran. When she objects he basically complains that it's not fair. She has so much talent! Why shouldn't be entitled to at least half? It was chilling and, I'm positive, a conversation I have had a dozen times with men who didn't know they were having it. As she sprints away from this loser (and as my cousin whispered, "Go girl!") he screams she's a bitch before crumbling and confessing he loves her so much. Mama mia. Too real, 2018.
The development of the whacko plot was fast, yes. Too fast probably. After reading reviews of the show that seemed to be most people's beef. (That and feeling hoodwinked to see a political thriller when they were promised a rainbow of lil horsies). To be A. I'd rather see a play that moves too fast (perhaps unbelievably) than one that doesn't move at all. And if we were going to get to the end of this thing, in an explosion of paranoia, it had to clip along. B. I didn't feel hoodwinked because the principles of MLP remained despite new plot developments. It was COOL, guys.
I did have one hope that didn't pay off in this play. Shawn was such a garbage bag, and, look, I just wanted to see him get knocked on his butt. I wanted to see him fall. The end of the play circled around the idea that the three women on stage, sorting through all the mess of their "friends" should just band together. They were in a web created by and for men trying not to suffocate when they could simply all decide to run for it together. A character explains how stupid the whole Brony fad is in the first place. The show was meant to teach little girls to be friends and instead all anybody knows about it is that adult men like it. It's true, and something I had never considered. Can't we have anything? And so the end. The end being whats going to happen to these people? I just wanted more. I GET the ending of "Okay, ladies, facism is coming for you, so what are you going to do about it?" Hm, yes, I am an audience member and hmm how am I going to apply this question to my own life, yes yes yes. BUT, I already get it, you know? I get facism is coming for me, and I am doing my best to curb it. I now just want to see jerks get hit in the face. I was ready to whoop and cheer, and instead I could only clap.
The set for Theater Wit's production was immediately inviting--a living room Brony'd out with rainbow curtains and toy ponies and lest we forget, a plate of strawberry frosted poptarts (which, if you have ever seen my thigh, you know mean a lot to me). Plus, every audience member got a teeny plastic pony! How adorable and perfect. "We're all in this weird club now." Meanwhile, that one bright room is surrounded by rust belt backdrop--a foreshadowing of how their utopia can't stay enclosed forever.
The play begins with a long monologue from Shawn, a scrawny white guy dressed in a pink horse costume, about how he used to struggle to find his self/masculinity (citing Mad Men, no less) and how once he joined the Pony club, he felt free to be himself. The other present members, also in their sparkles and tutus, nod, agree, and speak with enthusiasm as well. And then the first "huh" happens. A nervous woman confesses she thought this was a meet-up for 9/11 Truthers. She leaves. The group, clad in false hooves, call her "the crazy lady." Another Brony shows up concerned about the state of a mutual friend, who was grabbed by "Neighborhood Watch." And we learn about this town's interesting predicament with unidentified, black clad, trucker hat wearing, flashlight-wielding "helper" community vigilantes. So in scene one it's all laid out there--weird uprising secretive group, adorable secretive group, ultra counter-culture secretive group. Theme: secrets, y'all. This theme is the bedrock for the rest of the piece--beginning with the simple enough conversation of "Should we take down our Meetup online page and risk people we don't want getting in at the expense of possibly locking out a future welcomed member?" to a full-blown secret head council within a head council overthrow that results in the injury/killing of dozens of homeless folk in the town. We love secrecy, but it ruins us from the inside out. We can never stop second guessing what is real inside a secret space. That will never not be true.
A few more ideas: I loved the Crucible parallel to the Act I closing sign, which puts each character through the anxiety of signing their name to something they don't necessarily believe for the benefit of another. The snacks were not lost on this little dramaturgical theatre-goer! At the set of the show the Bronies have the poptarts. At the next meeting, rainbow cookies. And then as their utopia begins to deflate, a bowl of white popcorn. Finally, a crinkled bag of Cheetos. Gross, unhealthy, fast and cheap, perhaps even symbolic of Tr*mp (as some people call him The Cheeto). To me the most engaging moment in the whole play was Shawn's speech (long gone from wearing pink fuzz and back to his "manly" fedora) once he was at the top of the Antelope Party. He plagiarizes from his girlfriend who is desperate for power in an organization her father once ran. When she objects he basically complains that it's not fair. She has so much talent! Why shouldn't be entitled to at least half? It was chilling and, I'm positive, a conversation I have had a dozen times with men who didn't know they were having it. As she sprints away from this loser (and as my cousin whispered, "Go girl!") he screams she's a bitch before crumbling and confessing he loves her so much. Mama mia. Too real, 2018.
The development of the whacko plot was fast, yes. Too fast probably. After reading reviews of the show that seemed to be most people's beef. (That and feeling hoodwinked to see a political thriller when they were promised a rainbow of lil horsies). To be A. I'd rather see a play that moves too fast (perhaps unbelievably) than one that doesn't move at all. And if we were going to get to the end of this thing, in an explosion of paranoia, it had to clip along. B. I didn't feel hoodwinked because the principles of MLP remained despite new plot developments. It was COOL, guys.
I did have one hope that didn't pay off in this play. Shawn was such a garbage bag, and, look, I just wanted to see him get knocked on his butt. I wanted to see him fall. The end of the play circled around the idea that the three women on stage, sorting through all the mess of their "friends" should just band together. They were in a web created by and for men trying not to suffocate when they could simply all decide to run for it together. A character explains how stupid the whole Brony fad is in the first place. The show was meant to teach little girls to be friends and instead all anybody knows about it is that adult men like it. It's true, and something I had never considered. Can't we have anything? And so the end. The end being whats going to happen to these people? I just wanted more. I GET the ending of "Okay, ladies, facism is coming for you, so what are you going to do about it?" Hm, yes, I am an audience member and hmm how am I going to apply this question to my own life, yes yes yes. BUT, I already get it, you know? I get facism is coming for me, and I am doing my best to curb it. I now just want to see jerks get hit in the face. I was ready to whoop and cheer, and instead I could only clap.
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