BWW Review: Yale Rep's THESE PAPER BULLETS Captures 1964 Nostalgia at Geffen
by Don Grigware
- Sep 18, 2015
Commissioned by the Yale Repertory Theatre and premiering there in 2014, These Paper Bullets by Rolin Jones received 4 Connecticut Critics Awards and has been a highly anticipated arrival this fall at the Geffen Playhouse. Now onstage at the Gil Cates Theater through October 18, the show is a huge, if not over produced, endeavor. Subtitled A Modish Ripoff of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, what we get is Shakespeare's plotline meshed with the music of The Quadros, a group that took the world by storm - not unlike the Beatles - in 1964. So, it's some Shakespearean verse rephrased with a Liverpool dialect, music reminiscent of the Beatles - all original music by Billie Joe Armstrong, front man of Green Day - and overblown satire on the pop culture that resulted, namely the crazy fashion trends and sexual escapades that rattled 1964 London and sent it reeling.
|
|