Wooster Groups Early Shaker Spirituals at St Anns
Wooster Groups Early Shaker Spirituals at St Anns
LightsOut90
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/2/14
#1Wooster Groups Early Shaker Spirituals at St Anns
Posted: 5/3/15 at 11:13pm
Saw this today.
In short The Wooster Group is doing an interpretation of of Side A of "Early Shaker Spirituals" an album of Shaker spirituals and hymns from 1976. The piece is pretty much four of the woman (including Frances Mcdormand) sitting center stage in Shaker costumes and with the assistance of in ear pieces recite the songs on the album with one member of the cast reading the liner notes between tracks, occasionally the woman switch chairs but nothing really goes on as the go through the 20 tracks until the very end where everything get cleared from the stage and the woman are joined by 4 men and an additional women to essentially remix what we just heard while adding traditional shaker dancer to the proceedings.
oof, this might be one of the most pretentious things i've ever seen done in new york. Look I get Wooster is an Avante Garde theater but I just did not get the point of this, and how in gods name they got Frances McDormand involved. At 50 minutes it felt like an eternity and only at the VERY end did it start to get interesting, until it just suddenly ended.
Curious to hear from other folks that saw it.
Updated On: 5/4/15 at 11:13 PM
broadwaybelter
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/26/04
#2Wooster Groups
Posted: 5/4/15 at 1:14am
I think this is the same show they performed in LA (also with McDormand), which got a nice review from the LA Times. I didn't see it but figured it could go either way. Yikes.
LightsOut90
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/2/14
#3Wooster Groups
Posted: 5/4/15 at 1:21am
yeah its touring all over right now so i figured id throw this up incase it comes to someones town and their curious, to be fair there is an interesting idea here but the execution is SO ****ing boring, toward the end 2 of the tracks are the woman speaking of what it is to be a shaker and learning these songs from the older woman in their sect, and that got me super interested but unfortunately it was just a mess and I can't believe St Anns is charging upwards of 60$ for this show. So weird, we had a walk out half way through the show which was awkward because they keep the houselights on so everyone onstage or not saw this woman leave and everyone around me was either falling asleep or looked miserable, and yet it ended and huge applause, i think people were afraid to not clap i guess....
#4Wooster Groups
Posted: 5/4/15 at 2:13am
McDormand is a long time member of the Wooster Group, which explains "how they got her involved." I agree it is not good. I saw it a year or so ago while they were working on it at the Performing Garage. I am surprised they are still doing it (something I could also say about Cry, Trojans. I've always been a big fan so I hope this year is a temporary detour and not a sign that their sun is setting.
BakerWilliams
Leading Actor Joined: 2/1/16
#5Wooster Groups
Posted: 12/10/17 at 8:57pm
Early Shaker Spirituals has returned to New York until the 17th. Anybody seen it/planning on seeing it?
LightsOut90
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/2/14
LarryD2
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/1/14
#7Wooster Groups
Posted: 12/11/17 at 6:33am
LightsOut90 said: "OH GOD WHY!!!! WHY IS IT BEING PRODUCED AGAIN!!!?!?!?!"
Because whenever they produce it, it sells out.
