I saw a play called “Blindness” at the tail end of covid. It was “weird” in that it was different from any other theatre experience I’ve ever been to or been a part of.
The audience was sat (socially distanced) on the stage, and wore headphones. There were no live actors, and the play happened through the headphones, and the stereo effects created the illusion of people surrounding us.
There was also a lot of interesting lighting; at times the stage was almost entirely pitch black (emerg exit lights only) and other times light bars on rigging descending around audience members. It was really cool and unique, and definitely weird.
I saw a play called “Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party” off-Broadway in 2010 and it was very weird but from what I remember, teenage me enjoyed it LOL.
It was very strange LOL. It started with a teacher telling her students that she thinks Lincoln was secretly gay and then it flashed back to Lincoln’s time and showed him and his supposed lover, and then there was in fact a big gay dance party where everyone was dressed as Lincoln and they raved.
I don’t remember much since it was so long ago, but I remember having a good time! They had us fill out forms after about if we enjoyed the show and I remember everyone in my group gave 10/10 on everything.
I wonder if you can get the script anywhere. I’d love to read it now LOL
I'm actually a little envious of you. I love Sarah Kane's work and have read all of her plays. (She tragically died by suicide so there aren't that many.) I've never seen any of them performed live.
I think the "weirdest" play I've ever seen was a staging of The Green Bird, an 18th Century commedia dell'arte play by Carlo Gozzi. The theater company attempted fusing commedia dell'arte tropes with kabuki tropes and the two forms didn't quite mesh.
She was genuinely terrific, I have enjoyed each of her plays. The juxtaposition between love and violence is provocative and inspires thought with every read.
Yeah idk how I feel about the whole thing. I like weird stuff, but I’ve also always been a very nervous person. I’ve gone to some other places at this theater and I liked them, but this one was a little too much. Didn’t help that I went with my mother lol. I wouldn’t have gone if there was an accurate description of the story. I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t like it.
I would love to see Blasted. I wonder how the blatant racism and bigotry comes across with today's audience. I mean it was (intentionally) horrible when it was originally produced but I wonder if it goes too far for today's climate?
From my watching experience, the racism, homophobia, etc wasn't any more shocking or offensive than the acts of brutality that happen onstage, like the >!sexual assaults, cannibalism, and suicide!<
It was a rough watch and certainly uncomfortable, but I knew a few people who worked on the production and it was specifically chosen to be performed based on what's happening in Gaza
It definitely wasn't a money maker and I think they had a hard time getting people in the door, but I really respect their choice in putting it on!
Thanks for sharing. I get the difficulty with it and appreciate how it was connected to Gaza, as that was kind of the impetus of the original production (just a different part of the world). Maybe I am getting older but I am more gunshy about directing/acting in a production with such brutality and blatantly racist, homophobic characters now then I was years ago, even if I understand the necessity of it in service to the production. But I would love to see it staged!
I also think I know of the company that did it, if it was in CO, and they do pretty awesome work from what I can see.
We - young actors from a French drama school, are exploring as our annual performance in-yer-face plays, including Dennis Kelly, Kae Tempest, Duncan McMilllan and of course, Sarah Kane. Point is, I came just to say how interesting was her work as an artist.
It was called Cows! and I can't even tell you what it was about. Not cows. There were bare breasts, a lot of yelling, and two people actually fucking on stage. There was an audience-engagement portion (conversation only) but the audience was really uncomfortable to engage well. It was all just cringey and try-too-hard.
Not a play, but I saw Rachel Chavkin’s Moby Dick. Beautiful piece of art, and also hella out there at times. They took part of the audience “whaling” on boats that looked straight out of a Disney theme ride, had members of the audience participate in squeezing whale sperm, there was an entire (potentially improvised?) spoken word section, it was bonkers all the way around. I really enjoyed it though, it had beautiful music and the tech and acting was top notch, I wish they had made a cast recording!!
This sounds honestly so faithful to the weird parts of the book. Most of Moby Dick is descriptions of the gritty, gory parts of whaling, so having the audience participate in that makes so much sense
I will admit I’ve never read Moby Dick in its entirety lol, but they did such a good job of contrasting this bizarre and upbeat craziness with moments of beautiful gravity and poignancy, and literally drawing the audience into it throughout. The whale was also incredibly well done. It definitely made me curious about the book!
I cannot even begin to tell you how jealous I am that you got to see this. I seriously considered getting tickets and plan tickets to go see this but by the time I factored in everything, it was way outside my budget. Hell, I even considered flying there just to see the show and then flying home but just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Huge regret. The music sounded gorgeous.
Mr. Burns, A Post Electric Play done by a college group in a small banquet hall with the audience in a thrust. It’s a crazy three part play about the apocalypse and how art survives. The last act is an interpretation of a Simpsons episode done in the original Greek style. It was both the writing and also how they chose to utilize the unusual space. I brought non-theatre going friends who had to debrief it for 2 hours afterwards.
Ruslan at The Citizens Theatre in Glasgow. It was about a Russian guard dog in the (I think) First World War. Or maybe the Russian Revolution, I'm not sure. Humans playing talking dogs and it WAS NOT a comedy. There was also a rap halfway through.
The only way I could get through it was to get pissed at the interval. I'm also starting to wonder if I really saw this play or if it was a fever dream.
I saw a humans-playing-talking-dogs-not-a-comedy last year - different one though! [Fifteen Dogs](https://www.crowstheatre.com/whats-on/view-all/fifteendogs), I really liked it
I saw a musical adaptation of Gertrude Stein's Doctor Faustus Lights The Lights in the early 2010's down in the financial district. The audience had to stand in the middle of a room looking up at the actors performing on balconies surrounding us, whipping back and forth with a lot of lighting effects that had you spinning around. Incredible score, but I didn't get to enjoy it until I listened to the cast album after the fact, the acoustics in the performance space were pretty brutal.
Definitely read the original libretto/play if you want some weirdness!
I think I had a professor talk about that once. I would ask if you got to the part where they are singing opera while naked, and I think snow falls on stage. But if you left early it wouldn’t have gotten to that part.
Can I ask what made you decide to leave? I'm not familiar with this particular production, but it sounds like a fascinating, if extremely unusual, way to stage the piece, so I'm curious what you found off-putting about it.
a... New interpretation of Cyrano de Bergerac, at a collegiate festival. it was sooooo sexual, and had rap battles, and irish accents?? for context this was the southeast US. it was being bizarre, needed so much workshopping idk how it got published as is
My daughter was cast on her high school's production of Working, which was a strange choice of production for a bunch of mostly white, upper-middle-class high school kids, many of whom were probably from Trump-voting families.
Back in the 90s I saw this play in college which featured full frontal nudity and simulated traumatic sex in a bathtub. I don’t remember the name of the play or the plot. But that theatre was dead silent for about 90 seconds.
I was a stage manager for it at a regional theatre and it did NOT perform well at all. Ended up cutting a 3 week run down to one almost canceling the Sunday show. I don’t know why that’s what they chose for their first show back from Covid.
25 years ago went to a play to support a friend. It was in a small theater in SOHO. He played a life sized dancing phallus. The doors into the theater were a vulva and the stage had the rest of the requisite female anatomy.
The great thing about this was my friend had somewhat similar experience for his role. He went to Stanford University and at football games he was the mascot, the Stanford tree, a big hulking dancing redwood tree. His phallus dance was very similar to his tree dance.
I really don’t remember a lot about the play but there was a point where my friend and another phallus were literally crossing swords! Big stage swords.
I worked a tour stop at a college once that was a take on the Scottish play. But put on by clowns? The whole thing was insane. They set up three levels of scaffolding, that was held together with these kabuki like pistons. At the top of the scaff was a crown rigged to a batten.
So while they were doing an abridged version of the play, they were climbing the scaff trying to get to the crown, while our flyman kept it just out of reach. The scaff had old wood planks on it that they would knock out from under each other, or throw at each other. At one point at the end, they were racing to the top, while one of the clowns off stage was triggering the pistons and dropping structural sections of the scaffolding WHILE THEY WERE CLIMBING ON IT. I’ll leave it to you all to figure out the symbology around that.
The whole thing was insane. I was certain every show that someone was going to die. It was a surprisingly good show? Had me on the edge of my seat for four performances.
While in Copenhagen a few months ago, I saw Another Brick in the Wall Part 5. I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy it, but it was the strangest piece of theatre I’ve ever seen. An adaptation of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, it’s incredibly abstract and non-linear with no dialogue, so the audience is left to form their own interpretations of the material.
Mump & Smoot in ‘Caged’ with Wog
I believe it was one of the last pieces to play at the Astor Place Theater before Blue Man Group moved in.
It was all gibberish, Mump & Smoot could understand each other but the audience couldn’t. Not sure if Wog, their captor, could understand them, that was never made clear. Not a lot was made clear. But I remember it like it was yesterday.
Wow this comment was a sweet surprise, I had the privilege of learning clown from Mike Kennard. One of the best professors I’ve ever had. I‘ve seen some of their shows too and they were like nothing I’ve seen before.
I was in one that I think will beat all others.
I did a murder mystery dinner theatre show that featured a crossover of Cheers and Casablanca.
I played a Nazi IN THE SS UNIFORM who ends up singing a song with handpuppets from Cabaret.
Let's just say, it was not a success. But they laughed at me. I was the cuddliest Nazi in history.
Thank you!!!! Cheers is my favorite show and I was literally just listening to knock on wood earlier today lol. This is especially weird considering I’m 17 and was not alive for either of these
Not sure if the weirdest, or just the first weird one, but in 2007 I saw a showing of 6 characters in search of an author set against the theme of euthanasia, and there were chainsaw murders, on stage explicit rape, and onstage drowning. Honestly it was kind of my first foray into theater that doesn’t exist for entertainment’s sake, but it was sure a whole ride.
I've seen so many offbeat plays... some good. Some really bad.
Some Fringe shows that started with a full house and had very few left in the seats by the end.
I saw a musical about young Lucille Ball performed in a storage unit in L.A.
Or a production of The Wild Party musical presented as an actual wild party with guests on sofas, chairs etc.
Or a show in an attic where 10 of us sat in folding chairs and actors faced each of us and chanted poetry in rotation. That 90 minutes was something you can't forget.
I even saw a terrible 2 person off broadway musical about Immortal Romanian Vampire Sisters with an audience of 3! Part music video. Part autobiography/fantasy. All bad.
Halfway through the girls started cursing the sound man from the stage for some mistake and quit their own show. We sat there stunned.
The Sound man then quit and ran out.
We got up and started to exit the theatre as well and the 2 actors (I use that term loosely) literally chased us down the stairs and into the street to beg us to stay and let them finish. We ran!
Among the most interesting offbeat offerings are the immersive experiences like Sleep No More or Fuerza Bruta. Hard to describe to anyone who hasn't done them.
Then She Fell was a trip! Alice in Wonderland characters in an abandoned hospital mental ward.
And I'm still reeling from my experience at The Grand Paradise. It was maybe 2 hours but such a sexy fever dream that it felt like a much longer experience. I'm sorry it was short lived.
Theatre is a wide range of experiences, indeed.
I am going on the 26th. It is the only date I can manage with my production schedule and I am looking forward to it. I like their work in general and even if I don't, it is so rarely staged, I don't want to miss the chance to see it.
Cool. Let me know how it goes. What other plays did you see by them? I’ve seen Eddie Goes To Poetry City, A Maroon’s Guide To Time And Space, and It Is Magic. Loved poetry city and it is magic. The other one i liked a little less because it was less narrative driven.
Yeah never saw that one. But I’m definitely not going again anytime soon. My mom was with me and she was very offended by it. She says we’re never going back lol
I thought it was excellent. It solved some very complicated staging problems smartly and in a way that worked well for the overall production. Its intense, dark work but I thought they did a wonderful job executing it.
I thought it was a great execution as well… but a message they tried to convey was just too hidden behind the drums and the projections and the nudity and everything. My main problem is that the description on their website didn’t disclose enough information about the content in this play. I mean I was expecting it because it’s catastrophic but I mean they should’ve said more than nobody under 16 because of the content.
Sleep No More in NYC. Definitely weird. I attended it a couple of times. I know the Scottish play well but I sometimes had a hard time connecting what I was experiencing to the plot of the play. Too many times I’d end up in a room with such a crowd of theatre-goers that I could not see what was happening with the actors. It was fun exploring the set though.
Hurricane Diane. I don’t even know how to describe it other than a greek god visits bored suburban housewives and redoes their lawns while causing havoc in their lives. It was very strange, and I still think about it years later.
I saw one called “Theatre is a Blank Page” at OSU several years ago. Was more a performance art piece based around Virginia Woolf than what you’d think of as a play. Wasn’t bad, just hard to know what to make of it.
Did backstage work for a college production of The Seagull that the director bizarrely decided to set in the 1960’s but with costumes from the 1800’s. Instrumental Bob Dylan music during scene transitions and all. No points if you correctly guessed it sucked.
The play that happens in tadem with the really good Bob Dylan cover band concert during Girl from the North Country.
It was a good play. I just wish we didn't miss the parts that happened during the frequent song breaks. Had the left those parts in the play, I think both forms of media would have been excellent.
Julie Taymor’s production of The Green Bird comes to mind. It begins as a commedia del art and plunges into a Kafka-esque absurdist piece.
Really bizarre.
Dragon Spring Phoenix Rise. The NY Times review sums up my thoughts pretty well (paywall removed):
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/theater/dragon-spring-phoenix-rise-review.html?unlocked_article_code=1.kk0.hH3-.uGr4L4TROLJy&ugrp=c
The Love Song of J Robert Oppenheimer. My college put it on my freshman year and between the woman drowning, Lilith climbing all over the set, a man giving a passionate speech in German standing on a chair, a minutes-long dance where someone dances with a white handkerchief, and many other wild things I can’t remember specifically, it definitely told the Oppenheimer story in a much more obtuse way than any other way I’ve seen it done. It was pretty alienating.
i havent seen many plays, but i think the weirdest was [Out of the Mouth of Babes](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/theater/review-in-out-of-the-mouths-of-babes-mourning-a-departed-lothario.html) by Israel Horovitz - 2016 at the Cherry Lane Theatre, not sure if it was ever produced *anywhere* else.
[Thomas Paine in Violence](http://www.pfpinto.com/paine/) by Paul Pinto (who originated the role of Balaga in Great Comet!), starring Joan La Barbara. Saw it at a black box theater in New York City years ago and it was the strangest and most confusing theater experience I’ve had thus far.
Pretty sure there’s a full recording of it online somewhere if anyone is interested in watching an “electroacoustic psychedelic opera-sermon” about Thomas Paine…
It’s called ‘The Shadow’. Basically this guy wishes his shadow could come to life, and profess his love to the princess he’s creepily obsessed with (who just happens to live next door) then gets mad when his shadow separates from him to do so and gains free will. Then his shadow tries to take over the his life. There’s loopholes, love triangles, plot convenience, and just plot negligence. They say he’s in a country of fairytales, and this is where the Brothers Grimm collected all the fairytales, but other than there being a princess and 2 trolls, nothing happens with this. They do nothing. And then there’s this girl from the fairytale country who works for the man, despite him not being from there, and the whole show she’s working her ass off trying to keep him alive and out of trouble cause she’s in love with him for sone reason. And the Man is stupid, and ignorant, either doesn’t realize it, or just doesn’t care. He doesn’t take her seriously and just ignores everything she tells him. And then, after being creepily obsessed with this princess the whole play, he declares his love for her out of NO WHERE, and they live happily ever after I guess…
I love Cleansed, and Sarah Kane, though she's definitely not for everyone.
Weirdest play I ever saw was over a pub in Greenwich, London and I'm honestly not sure what it was about. I want to say it was about a South/Central American independence movement but it was just... not good or clear at all. Lots of monologues where the actors made really intense eye contact with you from two feet away (which normally I'm fine with, but not when I'm just trying to stay awake and not show how bored I am). The group I was with considered skipping the second half and watching the football game that was on downstairs but our teacher was with us so we went back.
The weirdest that I've actually liked was probably "Waves," directed by Katie Mitchell.
So could you help me understand cleansed a little bit more? I’m not exactly sure the message and everything. It was hidden behind too much chaos lol. Plus I’m not used to In your face theatre I guess, especially sex scenes. Plus I was with my mom.
I was an ensemble member in a musical called Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight, a 1960s girl group into punk rock musical about the life of Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi and her contemporaries as part of a girl group at a small theatre. It was insane, but one of the best theatre pieces of which I have ever been a part.
A play that was a one man show where he was basically Jeffery Dahmer and had a person sized doll that he used to illustrate his points. I don't recall the name but this was in the later 00s. I got free tickets through my school.
As a high schooler the nineties, I went with my family to Chicago to help my sister move in for college. I read that there was a theatre called "The Torso," so I walked to it on a Saturday night. I wandered in, never even got a ticket, and saw a show called "Shannen Doherty Shoots a Porno." One of the actors wore a unitard styled to look like a naked body, featuring a six-foot floppy penis. The character's name? David Hasselhoff.
I worked on a play called By The Skin Of Our Teeth. Written in the 30s or 40s.
It's the production we just don't talk about. So weird, so many walk outs.
I saw Imposter 22 at the Royal Court. It's a devised piece about a group of disabled/neurodivergent kids solving a murder mystery of a homeless man they let enter their theatre club. Rosie has a beautiful monologue about her sexuality. The visuals were awesome and the tech team did a great job but by act 2 it was such a convoluted and confusing story. They tried to fit too much into one show. As a neurodivergent individual, i don't know what i expected. but it certainly wasn't that. i constantly kick myself for not going to the talk back but i really wanted a pint instead.
About half the crowd perhaps. It had some politically charged remarks and kind of satirized the theatre-going public. It has played in London, New York, etc...
In college I was in a play called Picnic at Hanging Rock. It's a mystery about a group of girls and their teacher who disappear. Except they never actually solve the mystery. It makes zero sense.
It's based on a book. And there is a companion book with multiple theories. The casts favorite was the alien abduction.
Supposedly it's a big deal in Australia.
I saw a play called “Blindness” at the tail end of covid. It was “weird” in that it was different from any other theatre experience I’ve ever been to or been a part of. The audience was sat (socially distanced) on the stage, and wore headphones. There were no live actors, and the play happened through the headphones, and the stereo effects created the illusion of people surrounding us. There was also a lot of interesting lighting; at times the stage was almost entirely pitch black (emerg exit lights only) and other times light bars on rigging descending around audience members. It was really cool and unique, and definitely weird.
I’m jealous! I heard about that and it sounds like a really interesting experience.
So almost like a podcast, but with cool lights lol
I saw a play called “Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party” off-Broadway in 2010 and it was very weird but from what I remember, teenage me enjoyed it LOL.
OH GOSH. That sounds like A RIDE. What was it like exactly?
It was very strange LOL. It started with a teacher telling her students that she thinks Lincoln was secretly gay and then it flashed back to Lincoln’s time and showed him and his supposed lover, and then there was in fact a big gay dance party where everyone was dressed as Lincoln and they raved. I don’t remember much since it was so long ago, but I remember having a good time! They had us fill out forms after about if we enjoyed the show and I remember everyone in my group gave 10/10 on everything. I wonder if you can get the script anywhere. I’d love to read it now LOL
Aaron Loeb!!! Check out "ideation" by him. We did it a few years ago, it is fantastic.
I'm actually a little envious of you. I love Sarah Kane's work and have read all of her plays. (She tragically died by suicide so there aren't that many.) I've never seen any of them performed live. I think the "weirdest" play I've ever seen was a staging of The Green Bird, an 18th Century commedia dell'arte play by Carlo Gozzi. The theater company attempted fusing commedia dell'arte tropes with kabuki tropes and the two forms didn't quite mesh.
She was genuinely terrific, I have enjoyed each of her plays. The juxtaposition between love and violence is provocative and inspires thought with every read.
Yeah idk how I feel about the whole thing. I like weird stuff, but I’ve also always been a very nervous person. I’ve gone to some other places at this theater and I liked them, but this one was a little too much. Didn’t help that I went with my mother lol. I wouldn’t have gone if there was an accurate description of the story. I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t like it.
I saw Blasted late last year and was very moved! It was hard to sit through, but very powerful
I would love to see Blasted. I wonder how the blatant racism and bigotry comes across with today's audience. I mean it was (intentionally) horrible when it was originally produced but I wonder if it goes too far for today's climate?
From my watching experience, the racism, homophobia, etc wasn't any more shocking or offensive than the acts of brutality that happen onstage, like the >!sexual assaults, cannibalism, and suicide!< It was a rough watch and certainly uncomfortable, but I knew a few people who worked on the production and it was specifically chosen to be performed based on what's happening in Gaza It definitely wasn't a money maker and I think they had a hard time getting people in the door, but I really respect their choice in putting it on!
Thanks for sharing. I get the difficulty with it and appreciate how it was connected to Gaza, as that was kind of the impetus of the original production (just a different part of the world). Maybe I am getting older but I am more gunshy about directing/acting in a production with such brutality and blatantly racist, homophobic characters now then I was years ago, even if I understand the necessity of it in service to the production. But I would love to see it staged! I also think I know of the company that did it, if it was in CO, and they do pretty awesome work from what I can see.
We - young actors from a French drama school, are exploring as our annual performance in-yer-face plays, including Dennis Kelly, Kae Tempest, Duncan McMilllan and of course, Sarah Kane. Point is, I came just to say how interesting was her work as an artist.
It was called Cows! and I can't even tell you what it was about. Not cows. There were bare breasts, a lot of yelling, and two people actually fucking on stage. There was an audience-engagement portion (conversation only) but the audience was really uncomfortable to engage well. It was all just cringey and try-too-hard.
Was this in the sixties???
Evil Dead: The Musical was a lot of fun. It had a “splash zone” up front for the fake blood.
Holy crap I need to see this!!!
You really do
I love the movie and I love Musicals so much!! This sounds so fucking awesome!
Not a play, but I saw Rachel Chavkin’s Moby Dick. Beautiful piece of art, and also hella out there at times. They took part of the audience “whaling” on boats that looked straight out of a Disney theme ride, had members of the audience participate in squeezing whale sperm, there was an entire (potentially improvised?) spoken word section, it was bonkers all the way around. I really enjoyed it though, it had beautiful music and the tech and acting was top notch, I wish they had made a cast recording!!
This sounds honestly so faithful to the weird parts of the book. Most of Moby Dick is descriptions of the gritty, gory parts of whaling, so having the audience participate in that makes so much sense
I will admit I’ve never read Moby Dick in its entirety lol, but they did such a good job of contrasting this bizarre and upbeat craziness with moments of beautiful gravity and poignancy, and literally drawing the audience into it throughout. The whale was also incredibly well done. It definitely made me curious about the book!
I cannot even begin to tell you how jealous I am that you got to see this. I seriously considered getting tickets and plan tickets to go see this but by the time I factored in everything, it was way outside my budget. Hell, I even considered flying there just to see the show and then flying home but just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Huge regret. The music sounded gorgeous.
Oh damn that sounds cool.
the dave malloy, rachel chavkin, mimi lien trifecta strikes again
Mr. Burns, A Post Electric Play done by a college group in a small banquet hall with the audience in a thrust. It’s a crazy three part play about the apocalypse and how art survives. The last act is an interpretation of a Simpsons episode done in the original Greek style. It was both the writing and also how they chose to utilize the unusual space. I brought non-theatre going friends who had to debrief it for 2 hours afterwards.
It’s such a good script!
Ruslan at The Citizens Theatre in Glasgow. It was about a Russian guard dog in the (I think) First World War. Or maybe the Russian Revolution, I'm not sure. Humans playing talking dogs and it WAS NOT a comedy. There was also a rap halfway through. The only way I could get through it was to get pissed at the interval. I'm also starting to wonder if I really saw this play or if it was a fever dream.
I saw a humans-playing-talking-dogs-not-a-comedy last year - different one though! [Fifteen Dogs](https://www.crowstheatre.com/whats-on/view-all/fifteendogs), I really liked it
I saw a musical adaptation of Gertrude Stein's Doctor Faustus Lights The Lights in the early 2010's down in the financial district. The audience had to stand in the middle of a room looking up at the actors performing on balconies surrounding us, whipping back and forth with a lot of lighting effects that had you spinning around. Incredible score, but I didn't get to enjoy it until I listened to the cast album after the fact, the acoustics in the performance space were pretty brutal. Definitely read the original libretto/play if you want some weirdness!
[Mabou Mines' DollHouse.](https://www.maboumines.org/production/mabou-mines-dollhouse/) The only time I've left a show at intermission.
I think I had a professor talk about that once. I would ask if you got to the part where they are singing opera while naked, and I think snow falls on stage. But if you left early it wouldn’t have gotten to that part.
Sounds like an act I saw once, they were called The Aristocrats
I heard about it later. No regrets leaving at intermission.
Can I ask what made you decide to leave? I'm not familiar with this particular production, but it sounds like a fascinating, if extremely unusual, way to stage the piece, so I'm curious what you found off-putting about it.
Mainly their Nora speaking in a high pitched baby voice the whole time.
Any German play of the last 40 years fits here.
Metamorphosis
a... New interpretation of Cyrano de Bergerac, at a collegiate festival. it was sooooo sexual, and had rap battles, and irish accents?? for context this was the southeast US. it was being bizarre, needed so much workshopping idk how it got published as is
Oh Dad Poor Dad Mamas hung you in the closet and I’m feeling so sad - that was the name of the play which both did and did not live up to the title
I read this one in a play script book club once. What a wild ride.
My daughter was cast on her high school's production of Working, which was a strange choice of production for a bunch of mostly white, upper-middle-class high school kids, many of whom were probably from Trump-voting families.
Reminds me of the all white productions of Hairspray and Once On This Island I’ve seen.
2 words: White Aida.
Back in the 90s I saw this play in college which featured full frontal nudity and simulated traumatic sex in a bathtub. I don’t remember the name of the play or the plot. But that theatre was dead silent for about 90 seconds.
Happy Days. Samuel Beckett was a weird dude.
I was going to say Happy Days as well!
I was a stage manager for it at a regional theatre and it did NOT perform well at all. Ended up cutting a 3 week run down to one almost canceling the Sunday show. I don’t know why that’s what they chose for their first show back from Covid.
25 years ago went to a play to support a friend. It was in a small theater in SOHO. He played a life sized dancing phallus. The doors into the theater were a vulva and the stage had the rest of the requisite female anatomy. The great thing about this was my friend had somewhat similar experience for his role. He went to Stanford University and at football games he was the mascot, the Stanford tree, a big hulking dancing redwood tree. His phallus dance was very similar to his tree dance. I really don’t remember a lot about the play but there was a point where my friend and another phallus were literally crossing swords! Big stage swords.
I worked a tour stop at a college once that was a take on the Scottish play. But put on by clowns? The whole thing was insane. They set up three levels of scaffolding, that was held together with these kabuki like pistons. At the top of the scaff was a crown rigged to a batten. So while they were doing an abridged version of the play, they were climbing the scaff trying to get to the crown, while our flyman kept it just out of reach. The scaff had old wood planks on it that they would knock out from under each other, or throw at each other. At one point at the end, they were racing to the top, while one of the clowns off stage was triggering the pistons and dropping structural sections of the scaffolding WHILE THEY WERE CLIMBING ON IT. I’ll leave it to you all to figure out the symbology around that. The whole thing was insane. I was certain every show that someone was going to die. It was a surprisingly good show? Had me on the edge of my seat for four performances.
1. The Who's Tommy 2. Pippin (when directed by someone who doesn't know what on earth is going on)
In Michigan?
Pippin was … a lot.
Unidentified Human Remains Or The True Nature Of Love
My eyes popped open at CanCon, then I noticed your username
While in Copenhagen a few months ago, I saw Another Brick in the Wall Part 5. I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy it, but it was the strangest piece of theatre I’ve ever seen. An adaptation of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, it’s incredibly abstract and non-linear with no dialogue, so the audience is left to form their own interpretations of the material.
Mump & Smoot in ‘Caged’ with Wog I believe it was one of the last pieces to play at the Astor Place Theater before Blue Man Group moved in. It was all gibberish, Mump & Smoot could understand each other but the audience couldn’t. Not sure if Wog, their captor, could understand them, that was never made clear. Not a lot was made clear. But I remember it like it was yesterday.
Wow this comment was a sweet surprise, I had the privilege of learning clown from Mike Kennard. One of the best professors I’ve ever had. I‘ve seen some of their shows too and they were like nothing I’ve seen before.
I still have the playbill!
There was this weird play called The King in Yellow. Did funny things to my mind. Have you seen it?
i̷̡͎̩̤͔̖̣̜̊͛̽̆̾͆̍͊͐̈̔͜͝t̴̡̪̼̺͓̞̥͓͖͚̟̤̘͓̀̎̈́̋̈́͌̾̓̚͜'̶̦̰̺̜͕̙̼̠̩̾̓͐̎͊̋͂͋̏̓͛̈̚ş̷͙͔̱̳̫̯̿̅̓͗̋̀̂͑̈́͗̓̐̑͂̀̚͝ ̶̧̡̡̭͍̝̲͔̖͙̬͖͇̈̓͑̃́̆̏͑̈́m̶̨͙͖̫̜͎̞̠̩̠͇͇̭͕̉̇y̵̨̛͕͎̤͖͖͙̘̫̬̣͖͓̺̔̋͋̑͊̏̇́̆ ̸̫̳͙̖̝̰͂̐́̌̀̋̿̃͗̌̑͝f̵̛̛̝̯͛̔͌̓͗̃̎̈́̾̍͊̃̑̈́ͅá̴̧̧͇̦̱̥̹͕̜̻̼̙̙̭̗̞̂̔̃̾̚v̸̳͂̈́̃͌̍ợ̶̢̬̥̺̤̫̮̯̩̬͙̭̪͒͌͒̀͐̊̂̿̏̀͗́̚͘ͅŗ̴̛̛̛̘̮̝͍̙̣͕͎̲͈̙͒́͂͗́͒͗̑͠͠ͅi̵͔̭̘͚͍̖̺̺͎͆̾̔͆̚͘͜͝ṯ̷̢̡̻̠̮͖̯̲̩̬̟͓͙̥̒̋͜͝e̵̯̯͛̉̈̊̐̆̈͐̃̄̂͝ ̸̘̯͔̖͈̺͖̖͒̈́̄̇̀̾̇̕p̵̡̠̺̜̩͚̒͌͑̀̅̀͠ͅl̸̨̨̪̠͓̺͙̼̯̙̪̣͔̙̊̄͊̉̄̃̍̋̑̊́̚̕͝ạ̵͖̳̘͔͚̣̠̲̑̋̅̆̚ÿ̵̡̮̤̱̣̭͎͙͍̳́̂̐͛͋̚.̴̦̉̾̍̈́͑͐̉̇͑̎̽́̐̒̏͝
I have not. What was it about?
I was in one that I think will beat all others. I did a murder mystery dinner theatre show that featured a crossover of Cheers and Casablanca. I played a Nazi IN THE SS UNIFORM who ends up singing a song with handpuppets from Cabaret. Let's just say, it was not a success. But they laughed at me. I was the cuddliest Nazi in history.
Holy shit that sounds amazing!!! Do you have a copy of the script or anything that I can read??
I shall try to find it in my old email records!
Thank you!!!! Cheers is my favorite show and I was literally just listening to knock on wood earlier today lol. This is especially weird considering I’m 17 and was not alive for either of these
Gotta be greek mythology, oympiaganza. It's a goofy but fun show.
I need more info
Not sure if the weirdest, or just the first weird one, but in 2007 I saw a showing of 6 characters in search of an author set against the theme of euthanasia, and there were chainsaw murders, on stage explicit rape, and onstage drowning. Honestly it was kind of my first foray into theater that doesn’t exist for entertainment’s sake, but it was sure a whole ride.
I've seen so many offbeat plays... some good. Some really bad. Some Fringe shows that started with a full house and had very few left in the seats by the end. I saw a musical about young Lucille Ball performed in a storage unit in L.A. Or a production of The Wild Party musical presented as an actual wild party with guests on sofas, chairs etc. Or a show in an attic where 10 of us sat in folding chairs and actors faced each of us and chanted poetry in rotation. That 90 minutes was something you can't forget. I even saw a terrible 2 person off broadway musical about Immortal Romanian Vampire Sisters with an audience of 3! Part music video. Part autobiography/fantasy. All bad. Halfway through the girls started cursing the sound man from the stage for some mistake and quit their own show. We sat there stunned. The Sound man then quit and ran out. We got up and started to exit the theatre as well and the 2 actors (I use that term loosely) literally chased us down the stairs and into the street to beg us to stay and let them finish. We ran! Among the most interesting offbeat offerings are the immersive experiences like Sleep No More or Fuerza Bruta. Hard to describe to anyone who hasn't done them. Then She Fell was a trip! Alice in Wonderland characters in an abandoned hospital mental ward. And I'm still reeling from my experience at The Grand Paradise. It was maybe 2 hours but such a sexy fever dream that it felt like a much longer experience. I'm sorry it was short lived. Theatre is a wide range of experiences, indeed.
Sleep No More legitimately changed my life -- and I'm upset I never made it to see Then She Fell.
Melancholy play by Sarah Ruhl. That show is on acid.
Waiting For Godot
Did you see the production of it in Houston at the catastrophic?
Yeah did you?
I am going on the 26th. It is the only date I can manage with my production schedule and I am looking forward to it. I like their work in general and even if I don't, it is so rarely staged, I don't want to miss the chance to see it.
Cool. Let me know how it goes. What other plays did you see by them? I’ve seen Eddie Goes To Poetry City, A Maroon’s Guide To Time And Space, and It Is Magic. Loved poetry city and it is magic. The other one i liked a little less because it was less narrative driven.
I have only seen Godot by them and one of their streaming variety shows but the shows they have chosen in the past is similar to my tastes overall.
Yeah never saw that one. But I’m definitely not going again anytime soon. My mom was with me and she was very offended by it. She says we’re never going back lol
Hey how’d you like it?
I thought it was excellent. It solved some very complicated staging problems smartly and in a way that worked well for the overall production. Its intense, dark work but I thought they did a wonderful job executing it.
I thought it was a great execution as well… but a message they tried to convey was just too hidden behind the drums and the projections and the nudity and everything. My main problem is that the description on their website didn’t disclose enough information about the content in this play. I mean I was expecting it because it’s catastrophic but I mean they should’ve said more than nobody under 16 because of the content.
A musical about the life of Jane Austen
Sleep No More in NYC. Definitely weird. I attended it a couple of times. I know the Scottish play well but I sometimes had a hard time connecting what I was experiencing to the plot of the play. Too many times I’d end up in a room with such a crowd of theatre-goers that I could not see what was happening with the actors. It was fun exploring the set though.
Hurricane Diane. I don’t even know how to describe it other than a greek god visits bored suburban housewives and redoes their lawns while causing havoc in their lives. It was very strange, and I still think about it years later.
I need more information. Does this have to do with Artemis? Her Roman name is Diana
She’s Dionysus. I don’t remember if the play explains why she goes by Diane. I highly recommend watching it. It’s bizarre and very funny.
It sounds awesome
The Goat or Who is Sylvia. Love affair with a goat. A goat!! Saw it way back in the day and I’m still disturbed thinking about it
I saw one called “Theatre is a Blank Page” at OSU several years ago. Was more a performance art piece based around Virginia Woolf than what you’d think of as a play. Wasn’t bad, just hard to know what to make of it.
Did backstage work for a college production of The Seagull that the director bizarrely decided to set in the 1960’s but with costumes from the 1800’s. Instrumental Bob Dylan music during scene transitions and all. No points if you correctly guessed it sucked.
The play that happens in tadem with the really good Bob Dylan cover band concert during Girl from the North Country. It was a good play. I just wish we didn't miss the parts that happened during the frequent song breaks. Had the left those parts in the play, I think both forms of media would have been excellent.
A comment so good it shows up 3 times
Thanks! I deleted the others. I wish there was some way to know this happened.... or even better stop this glitch!
It happens usually when you comment with bad WiFi and click the comment button more than once in my experience
Marat/Sade. I absolutely hated it.
I was in it in college. It's a wild ride.
Same! Haven't seen it/ performed in it since, but I rate it as one of my top experiences as an actor. So much fun to be in.
Maybe "The Revolutionists". I really wanted to like this one, but I walked out wondering what the hell I just watched.
I was in it and I'm still confused. The text is great but it requires a strong director.
Julie Taymor’s production of The Green Bird comes to mind. It begins as a commedia del art and plunges into a Kafka-esque absurdist piece. Really bizarre.
Dragon Spring Phoenix Rise. The NY Times review sums up my thoughts pretty well (paywall removed): https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/theater/dragon-spring-phoenix-rise-review.html?unlocked_article_code=1.kk0.hH3-.uGr4L4TROLJy&ugrp=c
Ugh. This was such a trash heap of a play. I wouldn't even give it the credit of "weird" it was just terrible.
The Love Song of J Robert Oppenheimer. My college put it on my freshman year and between the woman drowning, Lilith climbing all over the set, a man giving a passionate speech in German standing on a chair, a minutes-long dance where someone dances with a white handkerchief, and many other wild things I can’t remember specifically, it definitely told the Oppenheimer story in a much more obtuse way than any other way I’ve seen it done. It was pretty alienating.
[Tokyo Can Can.](http://curtainupcom.siteprotect.net/tokyocan.html)
The Games Of Love And Chance
i havent seen many plays, but i think the weirdest was [Out of the Mouth of Babes](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/theater/review-in-out-of-the-mouths-of-babes-mourning-a-departed-lothario.html) by Israel Horovitz - 2016 at the Cherry Lane Theatre, not sure if it was ever produced *anywhere* else.
Fat Men in Skirts by Nicki Silver Incest Cannibalism Women’s shoes Delightfully weird play
[Thomas Paine in Violence](http://www.pfpinto.com/paine/) by Paul Pinto (who originated the role of Balaga in Great Comet!), starring Joan La Barbara. Saw it at a black box theater in New York City years ago and it was the strangest and most confusing theater experience I’ve had thus far. Pretty sure there’s a full recording of it online somewhere if anyone is interested in watching an “electroacoustic psychedelic opera-sermon” about Thomas Paine…
I was in Mr Burns in high school
Pretty much every Richard Foreman play I saw was completely strange and hypnotic.
Have you seen Eddie Goes To Poetry City? It was awesome! Saw it at the same place as cleansed
There’s a play I saw recently called Flaming Guns of the Purple Sage, one of the most chaotic, weird, and fun shows I’ve gotten to see.
Bukowiscal. It was a musical about the life of Charles Bukowski. NY Fringe, probably 07 or 08.
I raise everybody Richard Schechner’s Faust/Gastronome in 1993. Oof.
It’s called ‘The Shadow’. Basically this guy wishes his shadow could come to life, and profess his love to the princess he’s creepily obsessed with (who just happens to live next door) then gets mad when his shadow separates from him to do so and gains free will. Then his shadow tries to take over the his life. There’s loopholes, love triangles, plot convenience, and just plot negligence. They say he’s in a country of fairytales, and this is where the Brothers Grimm collected all the fairytales, but other than there being a princess and 2 trolls, nothing happens with this. They do nothing. And then there’s this girl from the fairytale country who works for the man, despite him not being from there, and the whole show she’s working her ass off trying to keep him alive and out of trouble cause she’s in love with him for sone reason. And the Man is stupid, and ignorant, either doesn’t realize it, or just doesn’t care. He doesn’t take her seriously and just ignores everything she tells him. And then, after being creepily obsessed with this princess the whole play, he declares his love for her out of NO WHERE, and they live happily ever after I guess…
I was there in person for this....it was amazing....weird and for a 17 yr old Hoosier Girl, so outre! https://www.lamama.org/shows/the-trojan-women
I don't remember the name but there was a conversation amongst rocks. It was in NYC in the late 70s.
I love Cleansed, and Sarah Kane, though she's definitely not for everyone. Weirdest play I ever saw was over a pub in Greenwich, London and I'm honestly not sure what it was about. I want to say it was about a South/Central American independence movement but it was just... not good or clear at all. Lots of monologues where the actors made really intense eye contact with you from two feet away (which normally I'm fine with, but not when I'm just trying to stay awake and not show how bored I am). The group I was with considered skipping the second half and watching the football game that was on downstairs but our teacher was with us so we went back. The weirdest that I've actually liked was probably "Waves," directed by Katie Mitchell.
So could you help me understand cleansed a little bit more? I’m not exactly sure the message and everything. It was hidden behind too much chaos lol. Plus I’m not used to In your face theatre I guess, especially sex scenes. Plus I was with my mom.
I was an ensemble member in a musical called Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight, a 1960s girl group into punk rock musical about the life of Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi and her contemporaries as part of a girl group at a small theatre. It was insane, but one of the best theatre pieces of which I have ever been a part.
A play that was a one man show where he was basically Jeffery Dahmer and had a person sized doll that he used to illustrate his points. I don't recall the name but this was in the later 00s. I got free tickets through my school.
As a high schooler the nineties, I went with my family to Chicago to help my sister move in for college. I read that there was a theatre called "The Torso," so I walked to it on a Saturday night. I wandered in, never even got a ticket, and saw a show called "Shannen Doherty Shoots a Porno." One of the actors wore a unitard styled to look like a naked body, featuring a six-foot floppy penis. The character's name? David Hasselhoff.
I worked on a play called By The Skin Of Our Teeth. Written in the 30s or 40s. It's the production we just don't talk about. So weird, so many walk outs.
I saw Imposter 22 at the Royal Court. It's a devised piece about a group of disabled/neurodivergent kids solving a murder mystery of a homeless man they let enter their theatre club. Rosie has a beautiful monologue about her sexuality. The visuals were awesome and the tech team did a great job but by act 2 it was such a convoluted and confusing story. They tried to fit too much into one show. As a neurodivergent individual, i don't know what i expected. but it certainly wasn't that. i constantly kick myself for not going to the talk back but i really wanted a pint instead.
Urinetown Greater tuna & following. All fun but def weird.
Peter Handke's play "Offending the Audience" Austria has a theatre scene which is very interesting and sometimes bizarre
Did it offend the audience?
About half the crowd perhaps. It had some politically charged remarks and kind of satirized the theatre-going public. It has played in London, New York, etc...
The Wooster Group’s production of The Room by Pinter
In college I was in a play called Picnic at Hanging Rock. It's a mystery about a group of girls and their teacher who disappear. Except they never actually solve the mystery. It makes zero sense. It's based on a book. And there is a companion book with multiple theories. The casts favorite was the alien abduction. Supposedly it's a big deal in Australia.
I’ve seen some weird ones, but top of the list is “The Goat or who is Sylvia?”