Massacre (Sing to Your Children)

On paper, the collaborative project sounded great. In reality, it made me want to throw shit.

The Goodman Theatre and Teatro Vista got together to produce Jose Rivera's most recent work, Massacre (Sing to Your Children). Like the title, which can't decide what it wants to say, the play didn't particularly work. Being generous, you could say it was about paranoia or fighting against the many flavors of oppression. But I was with the old deaf guy in front of me who kept "whispering" to his wife insightful things like, "That doesn't make any sense," or "But this is bullshit!"

The first act tries to depict the adrenaline rush of killing an oppressor, complete with hurrahs, sex and fighting. Really it was a steaming pile of self-important speeches. The second act features the voice of the oppressor divulging everyone's secrets, with an epilogue of how it all started. Quite frankly, nothing this interesting happens in New Hampshire, which is alot more honky. And if this guy was SO awful, what took so long to fight back? And why were there only 7 who did?

It wanted to be timely and compelling. Instead it was damn annoying. I really hope this isn't the "Voice of Latino Theatre". They had a talk-back, but I opted to leave, because as much as I wanted to give them a piece of my mind or try to understand, I also didn't want to get forcibly removed from the Goodman. Now I am rethinking seeing Rabbit Hole there...

on Pandora: "Candles" - Brad