The New Electric Ballroom

Last night a friend and I went to The New Electric Ballroom at St. Ann's Warehouse in DUMBO.

This Irish play, by Enda Walsh, was truly and utterly horrible. It's about three spinsters living together and just acting insane. It's stylized theater, with tons of monologues and little plot. But the problem was that the story itself is a cliche (the song Delta Dawn comes to mind), and there was little emotional depth. It was, as my friend said, all in one pitch. It was pretentious and ultimately very empty. A total waste of time.

It had gotten excellent reviews in The New York Times, and I had been very much looking forward to it. What a disappointment.

Here's a quote from the Times. It's actually apt, what it says, in spite of the fact that I hated the play and the reviewer loved it.

"Breda and her sister Clara chatter away to convince themselves they are alive, but also to avoid truly living. “There’s a terrible lull in the conversation,” Clara says with a squirm when the chatter stops. “The sort of lull that can get you worrying about other things.” It’s an observation Samuel Beckett would surely approve.

The heart-scarred Breda (Rosaleen Linehan) and Clara (Ruth McCabe), withdrawn from the world and its cruel gossip, spout language as if it were blood pouring from an arterial wound. Immured inside their house in a shabby fishing village, they fill the hours by taking turns describing in painful detail a day long behind them, and the night of shame and disappointment that followed. It’s as if the only way they can endure the agony of their stunted lives is by re-enacting the hour of the fatal blow."