twenty hours ago, attending someone's contemporary dance recital sounded like the worst fucking idea. because that shit is boring and i am only in LA for two nights. and yet twelve hours ago, as i sat disturbed and bewildered in the back of what can only be described as a makeshift-bunker-sorry-excuse-for-a-theater theater, contemporary dance was looking pretty effing good...
basically, you don't know now nor will you ever understand what exactly it is that i have just been through. you don't. i can't even put it into words to explain it to you. but i sure as hell am going to try.
thanks in part to a delayed birthday present from the folks (and a loan from wells fargo!) i was able to spend the weekend in LA with my friend Christopher. i am still in LA right now, actually. and instead of sleeping at 8 am, i am writing this down because it is just that important that i get it out of my system.
okay so, christopher and i have another friend here, kathryn, who invited us to go see her friend's dance recital saturday night, we obviously said no to that, and instead went to see a play featuring one of chris's friends from high school. now this friend, liz, chris has not seen in about four years, so it was to be an exciting night (we all went to high school together actually, but i wasn't friends with her). did i mention she and chris were theater kids? they were. that's important to know.
oh, PS, liz
so what is the play called? oh, it's called, "ubu the shit".
no. wait. what?
yeah, you read that right. the play was called "ubu the shit". I KNOW. RED FLAG.*
okay, forget the fact that chris and i rushed there, forget the fact that we each ate an entire sandwich in about 10 seconds because we went out to dinner and didn't even check the time, forget the fact that we valeted the car at the entrance cuz we just could not be late, forget the fact that it was fifteen bucks a piece for a ticket and forget the fact that the set was constructed out of butcher paper, masking tape and one spray painted toilet. forget it. because it doesn't matter. it doesn't fucking matter.
remember the movie "she's all that"? when laney takes zack to the performance theater thing and it was weird and they were all in spandex birthing themselves or something? that little performance deserves no less than eight thousand tony awards.
i honestly don't even know where to start with this thing. oh wait, how about here: the main character has a giant penis dangling between his legs the entire show. is that a good starting point? it was about a foot long, green, and bumpy. he strokes it, fucks his dinner with it, rapes people with it (who are puking in the toilet at the same time), slaps his wife with it, and puts it in various mouths. and i believe this all happened in the first three scenes. how many scenes were there? oh, just twenty. WTFWTFWTF.
this production was andy dick (the most worthless, vulgar, disgusting and pathetic person on the planet) meets multiplicity (you know, that michael keaton movie? but imagine it with andy dick) meets the toilet in the movie "trainspotting" (absolutely grotesque) meets the holocaust (the worst thing to happen to people by other people ever). does that explain it well enough? maybe.
but in all honesty, no, it doesn't.
every possibly offensive word in the english language was used. and i don't just mean the boring four letter ones. i meant every single racial and derogatory slur and none of it was needed and none of it stood for anything. they just thought it was cool, or edgy, or funny. and it wasn't any of those things! and every single line in the play was YELLED AT YOU, there was no speaking, saying, reciting or ACTING WHATSOEVER involved!
forget the fact that i couldn't even follow the "story line".
right about the time they started playing the theme song to mortal kombat (which i believe came after the scene where they played the x-files theme song - god i wish i was making this up) i turned to chris and said, "i'd rather be hanging out with mischa barton right now". and i was dead serious. MORTAL KOMBAT. MISCHA BARTON.
i also told him that i don't care what he does with his life as long as he does not join that acting troupe. if chris were to have surgery to look like carrot-top, started dating janice dickinson and developed an addiction to opiates it would be a better idea.
the only funny parts of the entire two hour train wreck were when the cast members would give up. on stage. during scene. one guy took off his mask and started yelling at another guy about how he was bad at acting like a horse, and then shortly after that some girl looked out into the
now the whole time, christopher is sitting there wondering what the fuck he is going to say to liz after the show. i don't care if you're merryl fucking streep, you cannot act your way out of this. there will be no, "you were terrific!" there will be no "i loved it!" there will be no "great job!" there wont even be an "it was very interesting" because it wasn't fucking interesting!!! there will only be, "sasha we have to go NOW", during the 19th scene, while liz was hidden behind a sheet making shadow puppets and couldn't see us head for the exit.
we could not drive fast enough. we could not go far enough. we could not cleanse ourselves enough from the ugly bile we had just soaked up.
it would have been more mentally stimulating to puke on a rock and watch it bake in the hot arizona sun. for ten years.
i tried to make up a list of all the things i would rather do than sit through that again. but as the list was nearing 893,982 pages i figured that a simple summary would suffice: I WOULD RATHER DIE.
in fact it wasn't until after i had put some liquor into my body that i was comfortable being around chris again. you know how sometimes you just experience something so awful and horrific that it's embarrassing to be with the person you experienced it with? eye contact was out of the question.
feel free to google "ubu the shit". their myspace page will come up. but it won't get the point across. and i will not link to it because it's just too much. too much.
and don't for one second think i didn't take pictures and record video, because i most certainly did. but
UPDATE: all the images are courtesy of kevin over at kevinbabbles.blogspot, who saw the play after he heard my vicious rant in person. he has a review up to check out.
*christopher (pictured at right, doing his "sexaaay fayce!") did, during the "production", inform me that this apparently was a show based on an actual 19th century french play called "ubu roi" which apparently is really good and really important in the theater world because it was so raw and edgy and out there when it debuted, but this rendition was an absolute massacre. sheesh.
