“Silly, silly, silly.  This is getting far too silly”—this is what Monty Python’s Colonel would have said about The Bald Soprano.  I would have to say that I agree with him; although I did enjoy the play overall and thought that the actors gave great performances, I felt that the comedy of the play was sometimes pushed to the point of being annoying.

First let me say that I’m actually a big fan of absurdist comedies, particularly British humor (or would that be humour?), like the aforementioned Monty Python’s Flying Circus.  I’ve also enjoyed reading plays from the Theatre of the Absurd, such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Waiting For Godot.  I personally like the fact that because the events of these comedies generally don’t make sense, they highlight the absurdity found in every day life.  One of my all-time favorite shows, Arrested Development, is quite simply about insane people doing insane things (it’s also where the title of this post comes from…I felt the need to do it).  Based on what I’ve just said, I should’ve loved The Bald Soprano.  So why didn’t I?

The answer to that question is actually pretty simple—there’s only so much absurdity I can take.  To me, a joke stops being funny and becomes irritating when it’s repeated over and over again with little to no variation.  Case in point—at the very beginning, Mr. Smith’s disinterested tongue-clicking in response to his wife was funny the first few times, but became progressively less so as the scene went on.  The same went for the good minute of awkward silence between the Smiths and the Martins, which was funny for about 15 seconds but then became rather awkward for the audience as well.  The interaction between the Martins and the scene with the doorbell came very close to being irritating, but Eugene Ianesco wrote in enough variety for them to remain generally fresh (it also helped that the actors were very good at selling the absurdity).  But perhaps this is what Ianesco was hoping to do to me—perhaps he wanted me to get frustrated to show just how useless language can be; in daily life people’s conversations generally are pretty repetitive, which the actors definitely reflected.

Speaking of the actors—I really thought they were fantastic.  A play so packed with non-sequiturs and ridiculous storylines could collapse under the weight of its own absurdity, but the actors played their characters like they really believed in what they were saying.  The women in particular were excellent at selling their characters; it can’t be easy to stay in character when the words coming out of your mouth are so ridiculous.

As for how this play spoke to a New York audience—although I’m not entirely certain, to me it mainly spoke of the absurdity of the world we live in.  One of the first things I noticed was that the floor was painted to look like the sky, which I felt really set the tone that the play was in a topsy-turvy world.  Perhaps Ianesco’s intention for writing this play was to show that even though we generally like to believe that we are all individuals, he believes anyone could be substituted into our lives because of the way we submit to the expectations of society—the Smiths and the Martins make sure to act in the “proper” British way and the play ends the exact same way it began, with a rather unimportant conversation about dinner, only with the Martins speaking the Smiths’ dialogue.

For British Eyes Only (Arrested Development)

I can, without a doubt, state that The Bald Soprano is the most unconventional performance I have ever seen.

Walking into the Pearl Theater, I had learned some background information on The Bald Soprano, which may have altered my perception of the performance slightly. Apparently, Eugène Ionesco had a completely different outlook on the meaning of the English Language; to him, the language was meaningless. When I enlightened with this information I was thrown for a loop, why try to convey a message that the English language is meaningless in the English language. Ionesco himself shed light on the fact that even a play about random people babbling on about nothing for an hour and 30 minutes could convey a message to an audience giving the English Language a meaning contrary to his beliefs. I was perplexed before the play even started because of this until one of my fellow classmates told me the play was written in French… (slaps hand to forehead).

Despite my faulty logic, themes could still be found throughout the The Bald Soprano. But in order to find them, one must simply stop listening to what the actors are saying after the first five minutes of the performance and observe their surroundings. The setting alone delivered a better message. First I have to say the set was perfectly constructed for this play, simple and yet so complex. The whole room was flipped; the dishes, the paintings, the candles sticks, the clock, and the shelves holding them were all flipped upside down; the sky was even on the floor! The topsy turvyness of this room made more sense to me than any line in that play. The set told me that The Bald Soprano was set in a world that made no sense, and that it was a upper-middle class English home. Both of which convey Ionesco’s message that the English language is meaningless, and also establishing a class satire centered on the people of the English upper-middle class.

In addition to the set design, I loved the utilization of the thrust stage. Thrust stages are amazing in general because it allows the audience to really immerse themselves into the play, analyzing each and every facial expression and body gesture, and creating the feeling that one actually resides in the world built by the performance. Despite all of that, The Bald Soprano called for a theater where the viewers could physically see both the audience and the performers side by side in order to emphasize the alienation felt for the characters, and the connection the characters made with the audience. Placing The Bald Soprano on a thrust stage emphasizes Ionesco’s point that the viewer acts just like the characters on stage. It is as if Ionesco is not only satirizing the upper-middle class English, but all of the upper-middle class, including New Yorkers. After the play I realized that most of the people who attended this show were in fact upper middle class New Yorkers, and I found it hilarious that these New Yorkers were laughing hysterically at what Ionesco depicted as themselves!

Although The Bald Soprano didn’t present a single line with any significance whatsoever, the first and last scenes displayed a very important theme. Ionesco wrote his play full circle, starting and ending with the same exact scene, but the characters were swapped. I found Ionesco’s idea very intriguing that everyone in the play was interchangeable. In present day almost everybody is trying to fit into the social norm whether they need to have latest fashion sense, buy the newest bit of technology available, or even try to be something you’re not. The Bald Soprano unveils how the upper middle class tries so hard to hold onto this act of being civilized. Most civilized people tend to speak so strongly about worldly affairs and major debates, but most of them don’t have a clue as to what they are talking about. The Bald Soprano depicts this idea so well during the argument about the doorbell between the male characters and the female characters, and the ending when they are all yelling nonsense to one another. Basically when someone said one thing, someone else would just say the opposite (one character said all the vowels, and afterwards the other character said all the consonants). I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

Overall, I found The Bald Soprano clever, funny, and drawn out. I understand that Ionesco was trying to make a point, but he didn’t have to make us sit through an hour and thirty minutes of total nonsense. Basically the first and last fifteen minutes would have sufficed. I thought the acting was phenomenal, but I could only sit through a performance about nothing for so long. Half way through, I started to say in my head “Is it over yet?” over and over again. At first the performance grasped my attention but slowly I was taking it back minute after minute. Ionesco, I know you have passed on, but why did you have to make a play about nonsense so damn long!

I thought this title better suits the play

Expectations. I think that the nature of human beings is molded in a way that it expects something out of everything. Our brains don’t cease to involuntarily create images and emotions of events that have yet to take place. These very expectations are then what give way to fulfillments or disappointments. Staying true to the nature of my species, I expected the Bald Soprano to be a certain way that my brain had pre-constructed it to be. I expected a grand Broadway setting with an overwhelming audience. I expected music and melodic sopranos singing. I expected myself to get lost in the darkness of the crowd and soon fall into the story of the play. I expected a story out of the play…

My expectations were obviously slapped right in the face, as my eyes mocked my brain for having the completely wrong image of what this play would be like. I was suddenly brought into this up close setting of the play, where even breathing felt too loud and rude. I was left paralyzed and nervous. Not only was I incapable of getting lost in the crowd, I found actors directly addressing me as they looked and talked. One might argue that this was an amazing engaging experience, and to that, I agree. Given the personality that I have however, I felt spotlighted every time my eye met the eye of an actor. My mind would suddenly fall into a state of confused chaos as I tried to put up a pleasant interested face that encouraged the actors. Not that I wasn’t interested, because I very much was, but I felt a sudden need to change my facial expression fearing that I would give the wrong impression of boredom or annoyance. Having a small theatre setting worked to involve the audience in its own way. Unlike movie and Broadway theatres where one gets lost in the story of the characters, these small theatres allowed the audience to be an actual part of the story. Aside from the fact that it made me nervous, I was being talked to and being looked at. Facial impressions were being thrown at me and secrets were being revealed directly to me. The play definitely did an outstanding job at breaking the 4^th wall. I found myself listening to the maid Mary, and made sure to hush myself when Mr. and Mrs. Martin were sleeping. This only proves the deep connection that the actors were able to build with the audience by their brilliant acting and by breaking down the 4^th wall.

Although my expectations were completely opposite of what I experienced at the Pearl Theatre, I would not categorize Bald Soprano as disappointing. However, I wouldn’t be able to call it fulfilling either. Unlike many of my peers, I wasn’t left with the expression of the pointlessness of the play. Instead, I was left with an emptiness within myself that needed to know what this play was actually about. I didn’t know what to think or make of the Bald Soprano. Hence, I couldn’t label it with my like or dislike. I kept blaming myself of being too shallow and incapable of recognizing symbols. I thought, perhaps I missed every symbolic and critical element of the play. What I did manage to sense out was that Ionesco was definitely trying to make a point in the pointlessness of this play. Hidden in the babbling and nonsense of the actors was a deeper meaning I was missing out on. One thing that I did manage to understand and notice was the mocking tone of the play. Ionesco was ridiculing the English bourgeois class for being thoughtless and stupid, really. Contradiction was heavily sewn into the entire play. Things seemed to give “chills up the spine yet warmth” to some of the characters. Certain acts were “useless precautions but absolutely necessary” to the others. Mrs. Smith just had delicious dinner but she couldn’t have dinner yet because the Martins arrived so late. I was able to notice a dual nature of ridicule that was intended by the playwright as well. On one level, characters were busy living in their own bubble of self-worth, mocking others who read newspapers in public or bent down to tie their shoelaces. On the second level, we as an audience were mocking these characters for being so bizarre. Only after discussing the play in class did I learn that Ionesco was really trying to highlight the powerlessness of language. No matter what was said, there wasn’t any connection between the characters. These people were truly confused. Their life moved along by frivolous discussions of whether there’s actually someone at the door when a bell is rang and meaningless jokes of snakes and foxes.

As a New Yorker, I obviously did not feel like I could relate. Bending down to tie your shoelaces, reading newspapers in public and even eating sandwiches on the go is common among New Yorkers. In fact, a New York audience too would sit and ridicule the English middle class for trying to give off a phony classy image to the public, when each person is mentally incapable of even recalling memories of two days ago. This was perhaps the reason why many people were laughing in the audience. They too, found the Martins and Smiths ridiculous for living the way that they do and being the way that they are. It might be possible that some of the upper and upper-middle class too lives in such a bubble of conceit and confusion. However, New Yorkers on the whole have a sense of reality and definitely acknowledge the power of language to use it effectively. That is obviously why everyone’s name is different, and not Bob’s friend’s Bob, whose professor Bob, married a rich businessman Bob, who just divorced a lawyer Bob, who now lives with 3 cats, Bob, Bob and Bob.

“The Bald Soprano…”

There was a thick silence as all the actors walked off to different ends of the stage. I started giggling from anticipation, as I saw the glint in Mr. Smith’s eyes. Were they finally going to clarify the title of the play? Leaning forward I held my breath…

“… She always wears her hair the same way.”

Oh… all right, well that’s cool too.

I suppose it was silly of me to think I’d walk away from the production immediately understanding the title and meaning behind it. But even though the theme of language being meaningless wasn’t obviously clear to me at first. I see it now. And if anything, I found the play ridiculously entertaining.

I’m a big fan of convincing performances and nonsense dialogues. I think uncomfortable silences and abrupt statements are one of the best parts of TV comedy. And so to have it wrapped up nicely and served to me via a live performance? Delicious.

One of my favorite scenes would have to be the five minutes or so the two couples sat in awkward silence. The failed attempts at starting a discussion had me grinning. And when Mr. Smith’s light cough caused the Martins to turn their heads so fast they could’ve gotten whiplash, I was in heaven.

There were parts when I became distracted of course too. I found the Fire Chief distracting – that’s the point I know – and unnecessary. When he went on his with rambles I found my eyes wandering. But now I am cultured I suppose, the author’s/director’s point was to make the rant incoherent. It leads back to the play’s theme of language being meaningless, and to the point that we can literally speak to a person for five minutes, maybe even an hour and a half yet still come away with nothing.

I feel as if the characters, the theme, and the play itself really reached out to a New York audience. Some thought the play as too strange, but I think New Yorkers are used to bizarre and uncomfortable situations. Everyday we experience the homeless pleading, disturbed men shrieking, and women preaching, and New Yorkers are experts at ignoring them. Leading back to the theme of language, they are also excellent at small talk; New Yorkers are savants in the art of trivial conversation.

A simple ride on a bus or train will give you a front row seat to what might be a modern day adaption of Ionesco’s “The Bald Soprano.” I cannot tell you the amount of times I’ve been a spectator to a two-person conversation going absolutely nowhere. It seems the average teenage girl has not yet acquired the foundations of dialogue.

Altogether, I found “The Bald Soprano” very relatable. As a New Yorker I felt the play’s humor and theme pertained to those also living where I reside. The “The Bald Soprano” does not simply apply to those who dwell “in the suburbs of London” with the last name Smith.

Cluck.

I knew I wouldn’t understand the play before I even go to see it. First, because English is not my native language, I have trouble in understanding the actors’ dialogue in different accents. (Even though I have strong accent when I speak English, I simply can’t understand people talking with unfamiliar accent.) Second, because of cultural differences, I did not understand some idiomatic languages used in the dialogues, and why the actors act in certain way even though these actions may be very typical for Westerners. For these reasons, I can only talk about “The Bald Soprano” from my narrow point of view.

First, talking about the content of the play, I did not understand the ideas of the whole play until the class discussion on Monday. I knew that there was irony involved in the play, but I did not understand what it was. To me, “The Bald Soprano” was like a dark comedy. Some of the dialogues may seem hilarious, but they usually have very negative and pessimistic meanings. I cannot say whether this play is successful or not. Yet, if the author had the purpose of making the audience feel frustrated as it was discussed in class on Monday, then he was certainly successful in doing so because I felt really frustrated while I was watching the play.

While I do not like the overall content of the play, I certainly feel the actors have successfully brought the words into life. The actors’ actions may be a little exaggerated, but they were successful in conveying the theme of class satire throughout the play.

Last, to be honest, I did not notice that the stage setting was upside-down. I only noticed that the floor was painted like the sky, and the display of china dishes were strange because they seemed to form an upside-down triangle.  However, the overall arrangement of furniture was not very bizarre. It was a living room of an upper middle-class house.

If you ask me whether I like “The Bald Soprano”, I cannot say yes. It was true that I was laughing while watching the play, but I have to confess that I did not know what I was laughing at. Perhaps, I simply thought that the dialogues and actions were childish and “worth” laughing. In addressing the problem about how “The Bald Soprano” speaks to New York audience, I do not think I have an acceptable answer since I still don’t know how New Yorkers think after living in New York for more than five years. However, from my previous knowledge and perspective, most New Yorkers would think the class issues that were carried out in this play do not exist because they simply think that class structures do not exist in New York. However, what I found a little ironic about this was that while many upper middle-class New Yorkers try to distinguish themselves from the other upper middle-class people such the English by acting like they are more integrated with the lower class, they are actually acting no different from the other upper middle-class people. Class structures still exist in New York, and almost everywhere around the world, despite there are numerous works that criticize this phenomenon. In my opinions, most New Yorkers would just laugh it off after they view the play. Who would actually think about the underlying concerns express in this play even if the audience know them very well?

I know Professor Healey asked that we not summarize the art events we attend in our blogs, but I find it necessary to give a quick summary about The Bald Soprano at the Pearl: Kdaowkewae oaiwkcm aweovkeor, kowoaekvek giej eiejosko.  Pkweokawe, wokeaoe ovke? Zkvoekokawem!

What does that mean? Exactly.

When I was asked to review the play by my mom when I got home (or in other words, how was it, what was it about?), I had pretty much no idea what to tell her.  I think my words were “ridiculousness, stupidity, and nonsense.”  I simply could not see the reasoning behind it all, what it meant, or the message the playwright was trying to get across.  What could he possibly be trying to say in a mixup of world garble and barbaric, animalistic craziness? Was I supposed to be this frustrated and annoyed the whole time? Why was I even sitting there? (Oh right, because this was a school event that I could not simply storm out of, [unfortunately].)

When I finally calmed down, I was able to think it through more clearly, and “absorb” as I like to call it.  I was used to watching plays and musicals with clearer story lines, and more explicit messages, such as The Sound of Music or The Lion King, so on a basis of comparison, it was reasonable for me to dislike this aspect of the play.  I tried to be objective, and said to myself “you just haven’t seen this style before and it bothers you; try to accept new things”.  I slowly let go of this problem I had with the play.

Moving onward to the humor, again, my basis of comparison was what I find funny:  an episode of Friends, a children’s movie like Despicable Me.  Maybe it was time for me to grow up and appreciate adult humor?  But I don’t think it was immaturity that held me back from finding it funny.  It think it was the type of humor expressed: dry, illogical humor.  It was funny because it didn’t make sense.  To me, that just was not funny; it was dumb.  It was consistent with my reasoning for not liking the plot: I like it when things make sense.

And finally, the message of the play.  I turned to my classmates after leaving the theater and asked in exasperation, “do you have any idea what that was about?” and many seemed to have some form of an answer.   “It’s about how language is misused all the time, and people don’t understand each other,” I received.  “Hmph…” I thought.  “Maybe this isn’t half bad…” “Yeah, I read the director’s cut,” they continued.  And that’s when the respect I had just half-gained for the play went down the tubes again.  How is a playwright supposed to engage his audience if the audience has to read about it beforehand or afterward, and meanwhile during the play, it just makes no sense?  Sure, there have been pieces I’ve read and seen before that I didn’t completely understand (The Great Gatsby, for example), but I understood some sort of message on a basic level.  I didn’t understand the significance of Gatsby being killed, but I understood some of what he stood for.  How could I understand what Ionesco was trying to say if I couldn’t understand what the Smiths or Martins were trying to say?  I felt, and still feel that having them make no sense was not an effective way of getting the themes of speech and the lack of listening across.  I feel that there needed to be at least something that made sense; if at least one character had a reasonable, clear mind, I could see a lesson being learned in the contrast.

As to speaking to a New York audience, I’m not sure that it made quite a difference who was watching the play, whether from New York or not.   I think the perception of the it would be the same to a man from New York or a woman from Texas because the performance was not set in New York.  It would probably make a difference to an English person who has the same background as the characters and could relate to the satire.   Therefore, speaking to a New York audience would probably only be relevant in that fast-paced New Yorkers would be impatient and frustrated at this nonsense 😉

I went to watch “The Bald Soprano”. I saw “The Bald Soprano”. I left the theatre of “The Bald Soprano”. Quite honestly, I came out with absolutely nothing initially watching this play. When I first entered the theatre, I was really surprised to see that the theatre was so small and that we were sitting so up close to the actors. I have never been in an environment like this where you are up close with all the actors so I thought this was going to be a deep and meaningful experience for me, instead, I felt completely indifferent coming out of the play because I was just completely clueless about what I had just seen. Nothing made sense to me, from beginning to end. At times, I found the play hard to pay attention to because I just found it so boring while the jokes they were making were unappealing. Sometimes I just took a cursory glance around the audience and saw all these elderly people laughing and wondered why they were laughing. I found the jokes uninteresting and not appealing to me. The actors completely illogical arguments dumbfounded me even farther. I thought, “What’s the point of this play?” but I couldn’t find any answer. The ridiculous scene where you had all of the characters screaming and hollering at each other with random indiscernible comments confused me even farther and even frustrated me at times. Then after that, I saw that the play was starting over again and then I pretty much stopped paying attention because I thought they were going to replay the whole thing again for no apparent reason. Simply put, I thought that the play was just completely pointless and idiotic until… our class discussion on Monday.

After Monday’s class discussion, I finally realized that the play was meant to be the way it was. It was supposed to be trivial and nonsensical which is the way Ionesco satirizes the upper middle class. Ionesco was trying to show the pointlessness of the colloquial ways we use language. He was also satirizing the middle class and how they are preoccupied by trivial aspects of their lives that shouldn’t be important like if when someone knocks on the door, is there always somebody there or is there never anybody there. Even though I now do understand Ionesco’s true intention in writing the play and give him credit, I believe that it should be more evident to the audience what Ionesco’s intention was because I found it pretty hard to discern.

Other then the play itself, I found everything else quite interesting even though I was sitting on the side and found it hard to see the opening scene between Mr. and Mrs. Smith because Mrs. Smith was in the way. The actors and actresses really were into their roles and you could see the passion they had. The set was also designed to stimulate your senses because you could see that the sky was actually on the floor instead of in the sky which made you wonder why the set designer made it like that.

All in all, even though I initially wasn’t at all impressed by this play, I came to realize the true significance of the play started to appreciate it more (but definitely not the jokes).