Not so 'Wild Party'

With all due respect, my golden retriever could have written a more thoughtful "review" of this show. In fact, when I was in middle school, I wrote a review of The Jeff Foxworthy Show for the Burlington Times-News that I'm pretty sure was a masterpiece compared to this tripe. (Also, if you're ever in the microfilm room at the May Memorial Library, you may want to check out my coverage of the movie Dunston Checks In as well. GOLD. But I digress.)

I agree 1000% that the DTH's arts coverage has always been bad, but this is a new low. Reading this, I honestly thought that I was looking at somebody's notes they had taken during the show. Most of the issues have been pretty well-addressed above, but "as with most musicals, some numbers were better than others?" Really? And criticizing the book and score of a show... that's like me telling you that I didn't particularly care for the paper your article was printed on, or saying "while this article contained many sentences (as with most articles), the web design was a bit drab for my taste." I smell a Pulitzer!

Truly, this is emblematic of the paper's refusal (or even worse, inability) to take the arts at UNC seriously. Honestly, it is a slap in the face to those who devote countless hours to making the arts community as great as it is at UNC that such a supposively (take that, "annunciation!") great paper as the DTH will only give bargain-bin coverage to something the actors, production staff, musicians, administration, and technicians have been completely pouring themselves into for months. I am sure Ms. Catchatoorian is a very nice young lady, but it really is a disservice to all of the students' hard work to throw a review together in 10 minutes, not even bothering to group the sentences into paragraphs for the most part.

That said, I don't think anybody would be upset at the paper for a negative review. The problem comes when the main thrust of the criticism is that the show only climaxes toward the end [insert multiple climaxes joke] and that the leads occasionally fell short of vocal climaxes [sry 4 teh tarheel blue ballz]. Get your act together, DTH - you are embarrassing yourself!

That said, I'd like to propose that the DTH hire Vince the Golden Retriever as it's new musical theatre correspondent. He smells bad and is usually soaked in PBR, but man, that dog looooves theatre.

Also, this article failed to mention that this was Pauper Players' 25th Anniversary show. Congratulations on 25 years of incalculable climaxes, Pauper!

In regards to those who criticized the costuming: Perhaps you should learn more about the 1920s before giving an opinion on the silhouette. The women wearing full skirts were wearing a style of dress called a robe de style, a popular style in the 1920s that has largely been forgotten today. A real robe de style would have had more shaping at the hips, but at the request of the director this was not put in. The fringed dresses people are used to seeing on Halloween derive from a 1960s impression of what the 1920s looked like, not from actual fact. Many of the dresses in the show were based off of extant garments. Furthermore, the 1920s silhouette is unflattering. It makes women look like long waisted tubes. The dresses that were more form fitting were indeed not in the correct silhouette, however those changes were made by request of the director in order to make the wearers more in line of what a modern audience would consider sexy. The costumes flapped around because that is what 1920s dresses do. That is why women were called flappers. Historical inaccuracies were also made to accommodate both character and choreography. You cannot do high kicks in an accurate 1920s dress. When costuming for a musical, these things must be taken into account. In regards to the design aesthetic, it was exactly that the costumes were gaudy and cheap looking. These are not rich people. They’re the lowest rung of society. They have worn these costumes to every party this year and so their clothing is falling apart. They cannot afford something that is elegant and well made.

In regards to the set: When you are working on a minuscule budget it is not always possible to build an entirely new set for every single show.

Writing only about the plot and other general features of the play? Making wide, sweeping generalizations that could apply to any show? Failing to interview any of the members of the production? Being overly critical to sound knowledgeable? These behaviors bear the trademark of someone who didn't actually make it to the show. I could have written this article with Google and a borrowed program. I call into question the following statements:

"Themes of sexuality, betrayal of trust, substance abuse and crime resonate with the audience as common issues of this day and age. These themes were portrayed well throughout the play." How were they portrayed?

"As with most musicals, some numbers were better than others." Which ones fell flat? Which were well-done? How can you randomly say that with no examples?

"A line from the play sums up the characters’ mind-set: “If in Heaven you don’t excel, you can always party down in Hell.”" Yet another cut-and-paste throw away line. How does this sum up the play?

I believe that the most appropriate response is not defensive digital comments, but rather the continuation of the production of quality theatre. Making good art is a far more constructive reaction; this sort of banter is simply juvenile.

It is nice to finally see coverage of the Arts in the DTH, specifically of the wonderful work that Pauper Players does. However, your shortsighted and inaccurate assessment of this production does them no good.

I was going to write this the same way you did; very fragmented, with one sentence lines. What ever happened to paragraphs?! But then I decided that for the sake of cohesiveness, I should write it the way one should actually write for a newspaper.
First of all, the criticism that the plot is obscure, truly makes no sense. The plot is complex, but the ensemble serves an almost greek chorus function and narrates what is going on at the start. After Kate and Black entered, it seemed clear to me what was happening in the plot. Maybe some of the nuances were missed on everyone, but I never found it to be obscure.
You say that the Costumes shined-they also flapped all over the place, and not because that's what they are supposed to do. As a previous commenter said, they were not well made, all the more evident when sitting very close to the action in the Cabaret, which we can attribute many of the issues to. The lack of clear diction was a problem at times, but it seems very hard to speak over an orchestra of that size, in a space that small. Most of the dialogue had underscoring, which can make it hard to hear if you have a large pit.
I also don't understand what a vocal climax is, or who fell short of them. Kate was certainly sensational, as was the band most of the time.
Finally, how unexposed to music must you be to not understand that duets, trios, and even (*gasp*) QUARTETS are often used for great effect. This goes without saying, say I won't anymore.
The real point is that your review is one of the libretto and the book, and not of this production. As a reader, I have been continually frustrated by the DTH's coverage of the arts, and even though you did a "review" of Wild Party, you didn't tell us anything about the people in the show, the big numbers, the dancing, or really much of anything. Your headline, while clever, casts a strong negative light on the production, as does your article, but nothing you said really supports that. The show may be poorly written, but the performance that I saw was fantastic. It was full of energy, life, and pulled me in, unlike anything I had seen in the Cabaret for sometime.
Thank you for your time.

Dear "andthenisaid" and "uncfan2010",
Thank you both for providing actual reviews of the production. Hopefully the reviewer will read these and understand how to actually review theatre. Also, to the actual "reviewer", please never attend an opera, because, in addition to people singing different lines at the same time, it's usually in a language other than English. You would hate it.

"Enunciate."

Overall the show was entertaining, I agree with the article on several points. Annunciation and plot were difficult to understand and follow, however this is most likely attributed to the awful space that is the Student Union Cabaret.

The costumes, while they did shine, only did so because of the material. Most of the costumes were clearly out of period and ill fitting, the tailoring was quite unflattering on most everyone. Also what was the aesthetic? It seemed like there was no clear choice made about the costuming.

The set was almost identical to a Pauper production done last winter, Sondheim's Company with the addition of a poorly skirted platform.

The direction was done tastefully, but why in a space like the cabaret, would anyone block people to sit on the floor, no one past the first row could see anything.

Again, it was an entertaining show, however the caliber is not quite up to Pauper's usual standards.

Please don't speak for an entire audience. This is your review and your opinion.

Also, climaxes tend to happen towards the end of plots and music. That's the point.