Sex all over the stage and costuming...

[burntcopper]

Ah, Matthew Bourne productions. There is no bad here. Me and wiccachik educated megolas and jamjar in the ways of Brick Shithouse appreciation.


Mmmmm. Ballet set around a garage/diner in the fifties. Yes, this does mean tight jeans and vests. It's a terrible, terrible thing to be forced, forced I tell you, to watch that much eyecandy. Plus, a show that starts off with a very large 'Man Wanted' sign... well. :cough: First, lots of people lolling around diner, working on cars, leaning against things, lazily flirting. And then Brick Shithouse (Taz and I's nickname for Alan Vincent - the man is built like the proverbial) prowls through as Luca. See the portion of the audience that has working hormones gulp audibly. As the Swan he was sex on a stick, but this time he was prowling and sexually harassing everyone from three rooms away. Then we get dancing, shower scene when they all get off work (and yes it does include the removal of towels on a couple of them), and tormenting of the slightly wimpy bloke, Angelo. Slightly wimpy bloke who has troubles noticing the nice girl who's interested in him, a wee bit gangly, played by Sam Archer, last seen playing Edward Scissorhands and before that, the Prince in Swan Lake. (you can't see where this is going. honest.) Luca comes through, gets hired (we love Dino, the owner of the garage. Comedy gold as the greasy, awkward-ish bloke.) eyes up and sizzles with Dino's wife something chronic. dancey dancey dancey, Luca shags the wife in the garage's office, only just avoiding Dino....

And then? Hot summer night, in which everyone's hanging out and then they start having the dance of sex. No, really. No other way to describe it. Everyone starts crawling all over everyone else and shagging on the floor. Which includes the gay couple. Luca prowls through, snags Angelo after he's been pushed around a bit, pulls him off-stage behind the car - and then the car starts rocking. A lot. Angelo and Luca emerging from it in the process of getting dressed, having a snog and awww, Angelo looking so starry-eyed. Adorable.

More bullying, more random everyone crawling over everyone else, Luca and Dino's wife get caught by Dino, fight, Dino gets killed by being whacked over the head with a rather large wrench by both Luca and the wife, Angelo gets framed by the wife. And that's just the first act.

Second act... well... a bit more disjointed and not quite as good. It's supposedly fast-forwarded a few months, Angelo's in prison getting abused by the guards and telling the nice girl the actual story, while Luca and some of the town lot come into the city for a night at an artsy club where the main act is pretentious Finnish expressionist beatnik mime, which the beatniks are applauding and everyone else is going 'oh dear god *what*?'. (it's the best way to describe it - Bourne's rather fond of this trope of overly-artsy that only gets applauded by the poseurs) Luca's busy getting drunk through guilt over Angelo, who he rather liked but didn't step in to save, and the wife leaves him at the club to make his own way home. Prison scene with Angelo, Angelo's about to get raped by the guard post being beaten up again, manages to get one over on him and escapes.

:deep breath: Back to the small town, Angelo comes back, leaves accusing graffiti, takes nice girl hostage, fight night is going on, nice girl escapes, Angelo pulls a gun and starts threatening everyone, getting to Luca - fight, then snoggage. Cue everyone going 'errrr....' more fight, then Dino's wife shoots Luca before anymore can be said.

On the whole, very good. And yes, I did spend a lot of it making squeaky noises. Just wish the second act wasn't so disjointed - it's like the first has most of the plot and the second is mostly tacked-on. I'll just be over here, making happy noises over Matthew Bourne's belief that there should be lots of sex on stage, and that there should be a decent amount of homoeroticism and whenever Alan and Sam are together on stage, that snoggage and groping should happen a lot.

Further note. Cast doing bows, we're giggling over the gay couple (one of whom resembles Eric from Entourage in body/face type) and then... er... the other member of the gay couple notices and thinks we're talking about him. Cue me getting a shit eating grin. And another one on the second bow. This, of course, provides immense amusement for Meg. I have to stop sitting on the front row of these things...



Spent sunday afternoon making a new version of the Tink costume. ...cannot quite believe it's been a good few years since I made the first one. Which, er, was definitely misguided since the base pattern I used was a dress rather'n a corset. Oh well. Got the corset part done, just got to make the skirt out of leaf shapes. Then decide whether I'm going to cover the corset in leaves as well. (making the recent-ish film version, not the Disney) It's one of those cases that occasionally you really have to admit to yourself exactly which fairytale character you most resemble....

Also have to sew the pirate shirt. And then, er, figure out what I'm going to do about the rest of the costume. I had been contemplating finally getting round to doing the underwear dress from PotC #1, but there's an ever-so-slight time constraint with that one. Unless I can come up with something easy that's not generic pirate, but hopes low.

Comments

[derryderrydown.livejournal.com]

I do love The Car Man.

And if there's ever a Doctor Who/Torchwood ballet...