Sarah's response

Sarah's my GMCC Arts & Cultural Management placement student doing her practicum with nextfest.

I gave her the task of creating material from which to create blurbs and such. My task to her was to write to a friend far away describing the shows I had her read. This was her response...

"Random Acts of Violence in America"
You would love this play. It's awesome. It begins with a great title and gets better from there. I love that she uses the word violence. Not offence, irritation, ugly etc, but violence. this is a play about the effects of being assaulted. Developing a higher pain threshold from being innundated. The stakes are so much higher with that word. I love this play for the same reason I liked Grumplestock's I think. It says something useful, complicated and applicable without ever being pedantic, heavy handed or obvious. The play is engaging, the message even more so. Makes you feel clever for getting it. I like feeling clever. And I like clever discussions of the shit we're surrounded by. Despite the fact that it doesn't appear to have made any kind o f sizeable dent, anti-coporate-anti-complacency-stop-drinking-starbucks-you-overwieght-asshole politcially aware art has, to me at least, become mostly clicheed. I think this is mainly because it's done so often, but rarely presented in a format articulate, original or artistic like the character in this play, wandering through her life, the only one who retains enough of her reflexes to be aware of its absurdity and disgustingness. And it moves. It's like a march. Gasp. It's like a parade! From beginning to end it builds and the band gets louder and the floats get bigger and then there's the biggest, ugliest, loudest float of all. I really like this show.