The Sunday, May 19th performance of Saint Genet’s Paradisiacal Rites is SOLD OUT. A cash only waiting list will be started at 7pm in our upstairs lobby for any seats still not claimed at show time.
The Saturday, May 8th performance of Saint Genet’s Paradisiacal Rites is SOLD OUT. A cash only waiting list will be started at 7pm in our upstairs lobby for any seats still not claimed at show time.
And, there's that.
by Marlo
The opening scene, a captivating field of wheat. And if I tried to describe more I would surely fail; you would have to see it to believe it. To fully communicate my feelings, reactions, and overall experience of Saint Genet's Paradisiacal Rites would require you and I have an actual conversation, an in-depth, lengthy talk that would probably last all day. In an effort to convey even portions of my experience I have to concentrate on my personal experiences rather than the details of the show itself; those details can only exist and be shared if you were there or if you are going to the show this weekend (grab a ticket before they sell out).
In an interview for the Seattle Channel (May, 2013) Saint Genet's director, Ryan Mitchell, shares that he will ask his performers "to be leeched, or be contained in very tight clothing, or be buried for four hours, or be shot with a BB gun. And I think...
Walking alone, standing, overwhelming sensation of death as we await for everything to start
give me a hand
we are all lost
Don't you fucking look at me that way, so sideways
Slow-motion spinning porcupines
I can feel you piercing my skin
we are all dead
Walk slowly, tell me secrets
The unbearable feelings that you are all robots
>> can you please begin the entrance of Sir. Carl Lawrence
moments are announced, beginnings
fucking sit down you people - is that what you are thinking?
…it hasn't even started yet
soft boundaries, this is the life
thumps of running steps
stop, just before the space, enter slowly
The unbearable feelings that you are all robots
can you even see?
Porcupine man
More everywhere, smoke everywhere
slow and steady
just like spoiled brats, and just because of that we can afford it.
the luxury of playing with death, the luxury of playing with...
This show was dark from the beginning, the cast members were spit upon and sent out into a field of dead plants. Like a disclaimer, these people began the show as damaged, soiled or disgraced. The field actually looked like more fun than the front where that dick was spitting on everyone. It was a pretty gorgeous show everyone was really attractive. I had only heard of St Genet but I was expecting nudity or sexual situations. This was about humiliation and degradation which certainly made the subject more interesting. It took a long time to clean the stage and the aftermath was a white powder over everything like cement dust. The dancing was really beautiful but the debasement of the guy with the gold paint was powerful. I thought it was belaboring the point somewhat but the performance was bad ass. The set design in this is crazy cool it reminds me of the backdrop for Judas Priest. Sexual situations with impossibly attractive women are predictable and boring generally so it...
So, I thought I would try to get hella drunk and write this but, I couldn’t get as drunk as I wanted to because I just don’t have the will power. Or maybe Genet would have won (why? I don't know).
If you want to really get into my review, please also listen to this song while you read which I've had stuck in my head for days so it is the background music for my blog, naturally.
Here I am, back at my lucky coffee shop, Black Coffee, the anarchist coffee shop on Pine where I felt the most luck writing and researching about Saint Genet, a band of artists called after the namesake of Jean Genet, someone who, in the history of theater and writing, was pretty anarchic. Did you know Jean Genet later wrote for the Palestinians and the Black Panthers? I like to think of Genet as like a Paul of the Bible type character. Like, he was a criminal, a total dick, but not for no...
"Paradisical Rites" is a stylish, waking dream, where the references of implied violence and death look sweet. A two and a half hour melancholy dirge across a slowly disintegrating field of swaying weeds. Peopled with beautiful, slightly disheveled specimens of hipster wearing looks of either disengaged, slightly perturbed angst or the somnambulant gaze of drugged out raver, these beautiful zombies in (and then out), of their Gaultier vestment, bib or artfully puckered nightgown wander across the surreal landscape in mapped sequence, enacting obscure ritualistic gesture and the repeated reaching, grasping, reactionary movement that speaks of deep longing.
Longing, melancholia and angst fuel the romance of this dystopian tale. The punk sensibility at work here ensures that darkness will win out and that the longing will remain forever unfulfilled. We are meant to forever circle and coax the longings of love with fidgeting fingers and reaching, grasping arms,...
The Thursday, May 16th performance of Saint Genet’s Paradisiacal Rites is SOLD OUT. A cash only waiting list will be started at 7pm in our upstairs lobby for any seats still not claimed at show time.
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