The Love Show

[flexagon]

heisenbug and I just got back from seeing The Love Show, which I am the last of my friends here on LJ to see... here's one review from when they were in NYC (friends-locked) and another from Brattleboro. ETA: oh, and one more from Boston, earlier showing than we saw.

The show was campy, which I found fun for the most part -- sure, some of the vaudeville stuff bored me a bit, but that's par for the course with me so I was ready to forgive that. The circus equipment was integrated well into the storylines, as if it just happened to be around. Unfortunately, I hated Cupid. Is there anything more annoying than a 17-year-old boy who's trying to be funny/annoying? Oh wait, yes, yes there is -- it's a 17-year-old boy who's trying to be funny/annoying while wearing a giant diaper. EW. DO NOT WANT. *shudder*

I'll list some things I liked:

• Girls coming out in frilly, strappy little dresses, looking all cutesy but who had HUGE HONKING ARMS. It was pretty great. I wish I were muscular enough that someone would look at me and think "wow, what does SHE get up to in her spare time"?


• The love stuff was not exclusively straight. OK, gay love didn't get any long pieces devoted to it, but there was at least one time when a guy got hit with an arrow from Cupid and started going after another guy (and his girlfriend interpreted it as sexual). I think there was one more of those where Cupid himself was infatuated. So, I'm not sure where someone else's complaint that it was all straight came from unless they left all that out of the NYC show.


• This awesome juggling/dancing duo whose sheer quality sneaked up on me and surprised me. I forgot how sexy and flirtatious juggling can be (though it isn't always). The woman also did a dance with shiny silver juggling clubs, not juggling for the most part but swinging them like poi, and made it look gorgeous.


• Super neat three-woman act on a triple trapeze setup. Not the regular kind of triple trapeze either, but one where the third trapeze was hanging between (and directly from) the other two, so they weren't all on a level.


• Super cute three-woman act on three folding chairs, made cuter (I thought) by all of them pretending to be on cell phones.


• Although I'm not one to often feel touched by children... at the end of an adagio partner-acro act when the woman made come-here gestures and a small boy who was obviously their son ran out to be hugged by the performers and carried offstage, there was an "oooh!" sort of reality shock for me, remembering that these are real people and realizing that they were also, obviously, a real couple.

I was a bit disappointed that there was no handbalancing aside from some hand-to-hand work near the end in an adagio act. I'm also disappointed that my grip seems to fail when I try to hang by one hand from our pullup bar (which means that maybe it wouldn't be safe to practice meathooks after all. I bet it would go better if I were grasping something less slippery). Aside from that, though, no complaints. We even caught the bus back from Watertown perfectly.

Comments

[nevers.livejournal.com]

haha, the diaper was awful but i did love cupid. funny.
also i felt that the gay bit was offensive -- like obviously there was no chance for THAT couple. the intention was that people would laugh at the implausibility or "wrong"-ness of such a pairing. all of the couples who settled down in the end were straight.
and yeah, i keep wishing i were that muscular, too! i was amazed by the size of bronwyn's forearms.

[nevers.livejournal.com]

oh yes -- i also loved the jugglers, and the chair dance.

[flexagon]

Ok... well, I'm glad they did those parts in NYC at least.

I'll have to respectfully disagree with you about the gay bit. Our audience may have reacted differently to yours, but we all laughed pretty much every time Cupid hit anyone with an arrow. Also, I remember pretty clearly that the person suddenly being crushed on said "No, I have a girlfriend!", not "No, gross" or anything. Also, when his girlfriend saw him (trying to get the other guy off him), she later said "I saw him with someone else", meaning that she DID take a guy seriously as a possible sexual rival, and didn't think it was crazy that her boyfriend could be bi.

I'll agree that all the couples who settled down in the end were straight, but geez, there were only I think two of them.

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

i agree with you both. there wasn't much same-sex attraction (but there weren't many pairings total) and when there was it was initially played for laughs; but bill and serenity's characters both clearly treated bill appearing to be with another man seriously, and it motivated her piece about your love interest breaking your heart.

i do wonder whether the level of ambiguity is calculated or accidental.