I Watch a Play, Am Bored

I am starting to hate the theatre.

I have been fortunate enough to see a couple of plays here, most of 2008's Damascus: Arab Capital of Culture. And with rare exception, I thought every single one blew.

Last night I saw "Tactic," a play that is running this week at Hamra Theatre in downtown Damascus. It's got some famous actor in the title role. I forget his name. It's supposed to be about a broken family, a runaway daughter, an estranged mother, revealed family secrets and drama! Oh yeah! Unfortunately, the "plot" turned out to be little more than a backdrop for a series of dramatic monologues.

While no great patron of the arts (I never understood anything my college roommate's experimental theatre did), I'd appreciate, some, you know, dialogue. And strong characters. That's what I like to see in a play, or in a film: the interaction of different characters and some sort of plot. The kind where secrets and backgrounds are revealed slowly, organically. In film I also like a healthy amount of explosions but understand that the stage has limits.

Within the first five minutes, we know the entire backstory of the mother, her secret, why she fled to Paris, etc. Then after a dance number we see that her daughter has run away to join some sort of casino/nightclub/brothel where the whores/dancers dress like in quasi-futuristic shiny hoodies. We then meet some of them, and the two dudes who work there through one after another monologue about how this happened in their life and how they became whores/dancers. It usually involves a broken family of some sort.

These stories range from a mother's cancer to the Shatila refugee camp massacre. I thought that latter backstory was... odd in the context. It seemed like the writer just wanted to stick in something that would get an emotional rise out of the audience - I'm just sitting there thinking, yes, massacre is bad, but what does this have to do with the play? At the end the father character is talking about love and war - and then veers off into hating on Bush and his wars. The audience appreciated the dig but it felt like a random anti-Bush zinger in almost every New York play I've ever seen: cheap shot. Pandering to the audience. In New York, and Damascus, you know putting in something about Bush being a dick is going to get a clap.

I seemed to be alone in my opinions. The people I saw the play with really enjoyed it and told me I just didn't understand it. Actually, there were parts of it I just didn't understand ("Why was he talking about Russian ladies and is now talking about Suq Hamidiyya?" "He's talking about buying things for their marriage" "Oh"). I know I should have appreciated the go! lady power messages (including one monologue about how boys and girls are treated differently) but part of me was thinking: is the message more effective when delivered in skintight shiny spandex? And are they going into space at some point or is that just a tease?

"What about the acting?" I asked my companions.
"Awesome."
Um, ok. Once again, not that I'm an expert, but I didn't feel like there were any characters. All of the ladies delivered their monologues in the same style, with healthy doses of yelling, screaming, and anguished hair-pulling. I felt like each lady-monologue could have been delivered by the same girl and it would have made no difference. The men also delivered their monologues in the same style, except the famous guy whose character actually seemed to have some.

I've seen plays like this before. Way too much. In Damascus but mostly in New York. I hated them too.

I know that Damascus isn't exactly a hotbed of performing arts and I should be happy with what there is, but shit, is it too much to ask for a play with a plot, characters (who are different from one another) and dialogue?

So afterwards I'm feeling like the grinch because everyone liked the play. The whole audience loved it, my fellow-theatregoers insisted. Though I have a feeling the male potion of the audience would have enjoyed it a lot less without the female cast in those matching miniskirt spacesuits. But anyways, I'm wrong.