Shel Silverstein Shorts

[magid]

Last night I went to the Loeb Ex production of An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein, a series of funny shorts (though not quite what's listed here as being in this group).

The show was very, very funny. I very much enjoyed it.

The set was crowded with stuff, only some of which was used actively, and some platforms at the back. The lighting was fairly plain (though with spots/color used a couple of times to good effect), except that the bare bulbs suspended over the audience as 'house lights' were annoying to me (but then, I hate being able to see bare bulbs in lamps, too).

1. In One Tennis Shoe, a man accuses his wife of becoming a bag lady.
   
2. Duck explores the variety of meaning to the title word, verb and noun, and how cautionary signs are worded.
   
3. Wash and Dry also emphasizes how important it is to read carefully, since the woman picking up her laundry hadn't truly paid attention to the business' sign "Watch and Dry," and paid for her mistake.
   
4. In The Best Daddy, a dad is giving his 13-year-old daughter her birthday present, hidden under a blanket which is a pony. Or a dead pony. Or something else entirely.
   
5. Garbage Bags was mostly a recitation of some of his verse, not a play, though there were walking garbage bags.
   
6. Signage again: in Abandon All Hope, two guys debate the meaning of the sign over a doorway, about the possibility of abandoning hope when entering there, trusting sign makers, and other philosophical questions.
   
7. The Lifeboat Is Sinking has a woman forcing her husband to choose among dear family members who to save in an entertainingly acted out scenario.
   
8. Smile had the creator of "Smile, and have a nice day," "Far out," and other slang being roughed up by toughs who can't stand speech.
   
9. In No Soliciting, a sign salesman gets more than he bargains for when he knocks on a door (already labeled with a handmade "No Soliciting" sign).
   
10. And the finale, Thinking Up a New Name for the Act (Meat and Potatoes), an amazing skit where all the words were "meat and potatoes" in a variety of inflections and permutations, in conversation and in song. Nothing like seeing a dance number from West Side Story redone with "meat and potatoes"...

I hadn't realized Shel Silverstein was a playwright as well as a poet, actually. I'm not surprised that his shorts all deal with twists of language. I'd love to see more of his shorts someday.

Comments

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Ah, I wish I'd been able to make it. Some of his shorts were evaluated for T@F and determined to be inappropriate, but I wasn't involved so I don't know what the precise deal was.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I wonder which shorts were looked at. Which is to say, there were several with adult themes, but not more so than many other pieces I've seen.

[queue.livejournal.com]

I'll bet that Koreans fucking one in the ass probably wouldn't be appropriate for a family theater. There was a non-zero use of the eff word in a number of the playets, even those without "adult themes".