[rocky] Professionalism killed the Rocky star

[jrising]

There was a fantastic discussion at the Rocky party about the state of the cast. The vocal consensus was this:

There's an undercurrent of over-professionalism at the show. In small but definite ways, the drive for professionalism stifles some of the fun of the show and makes working at it a chore. Because the show isn't as much fun, it isn't as good, and the audience has noticed. Both directors, theater 3, and Acid's absence were blamed for these problems.

It's so tough to disentangle real harmful effects from nostalgia. So, tell me: do you agree? Have we gained the world and lost our soul (or raised the bar and broken our backs)? The drive for screen accuracy can push us to do better, but if it drives out jokes and connecting with the audience-- if our performance just duplicates the film-- do we want it? The cast members used to work up the audience waiting outside before the show. Does anyone do that now? We have such a great group, and we can fix these problems, but maybe not without big changes.

Feel free to post anonymously or email me separately.

Comments

[suitboyskin.livejournal.com]

You raise an interesting set of questions and while, I'll bite and put in my 2 cents worth I also can't speak for anybody but myself.

While I'll be the first to say that I've always found FBC to be a little on the anal side when it comes to screen accuracy I don't think that aspect of the cast's culture is the root cause for any of the "vibe" problems that people are noticing. Now I'm not complaining about the screen accuracy compulsion. It's a perfectly valid way of doing Rocky and has been a part of the FBC culture for quite some time. I just learned Rocky in different environments that weren't as married to the notion of screen accuracy as FBC is. Not saying that one way's better than the other, just different. I raise the point simply because I've known some people to be rubbed the wrong way by the sort of "overprofessionalism" that you describe in your post, however, I don't think that it figures into the "feel" of the show right now simply because that aspect of FBC culture has existed long before theatre 3, our current cast/crews, etc.

I think one of the things that's so frustrating about people's problems with the show right now is that most of them are problems of that sort of vague, nebulous ultimately personal nature which are by their very definition, hard to put one's finger on. It's not really a question of moving back to theatre 4 and watching things go back to the way they were or the like. One of the problems with big, evolving groups like FBC is that there is a turnover rate, people do come and go and sometimes groups of people click and sometime they don't.

For my own part I had one major grievance with the show which, to peoples' credit, has been addressed, but the rest of my issues with the show remain hard to identify or articulate. This is why my time with FBC grows short but I try very hard to not bitch excessively much about the show at large because, much like with your discussion, I really can't say just what it is about the show that's not working for me. I'm curious to hear that others are experiencing a similar sense of ennui about the show though. I'd be interested to see what results, if any this post gets.

(by-the-by, I apologize wholeheartedly for any glaring spelling, grammatical, words-actually-making-sense-in-that-order, sorts of errors that may have occurred in this response. I write this at 6:45 AM after a particularly gruelling overnight shift at work and I'm simply too lazy/exhausted to proofread)

[jrising.livejournal.com]

I don't think screen accuracy alone is the culprit. FBC has held itself to a high standard there, and it really does have impressive results. But I think there can be real trade-offs between screen accuracy and putting on a fun show, both for ourselves and for the audience.

Someone said that the standard used to be that if you weren't doing a joke or playing with the audience then you should be screen accurate. But now people are so worried about getting yelled at that they never feel like they always have to stick to the screen.

FBC is always evolving, and we can't get stuck in some idea of how things used to be, because it was only that thing to those people. The person who started the discussion was an alum who's naturally going to feel less of the good vibe in the show.

At the same time, it's even more of a problem *because* of the turnover. An undercurrent that's making the vibe worse is taken as the status quo by new members who don't know better. I fully believe in our cast's ability to get past these problems, but only if we recognize them.

[suitboyskin.livejournal.com]

I think 20+ years of existence is testiment to the fact that FBC will, in all likelihood survive this current funk that we're in. Honestly it's done me a world of good just to hear that I'm not alone in having a lack of empathy (for the complete and utter lack of a better word)with the show.

As for the screen accuracy comment I wasn't implying that it was your only point. It was merely the one that my brain gravitated to in the wee hours.