Not only was the performance shocking so was the audience, and the audience's reaction to certain scenes in the play. Prior to this performance I had never heard of this play, so walking in I thought for sure it was something like an old horror film, with poor graphics, and a lot of over the top screaming. Judging by the title of the play I thought maybe it would be for a younger audience. But as I sat in the theatre staring at the three quarter thrust stage, listening to bluegrass I could see that I could just throw my expectations out of the window. I was surprised that most of the audience was much older. In fact I only saw maybe a couple of children.
When the performance began I watched the audience, most seemed bored at the beginning when the three kids were climbing down into the cave, but once the play kept rolling and all of the characters started to sing and dance, I noticed that everyone clapped in between each scene after there was singing and dancing. For me, this was shocking, normally when you watch a play you see it all the way through and then clap at the end. Then again, I have never gone to see a musical before, so this may be conventional and I am just not familiar with it.
One scene, in which I was very surprised by the audience’s reaction, was the animal orgy scene. After all the animals entered the stage, and just broke out with crazy animal sex, I felt awkward sitting in the theatre. I thought for sure that all of the older people would have many negative things to say, but they laughed. They laughed even harder after King Kong come out on stage rubbing his nipples, the woman next to me laughed so hard for so long after the scene was over I thought she was going to wet her pants; then whispered to the woman next to her about the animal scene being her favorite scene. One word for that...AWWKWARD.
I went to see this musical with my fiancé, and we discussed the play in the car on our way back home. He hated it, and criticized everything from the volume to the makeup. I, on the other hand, absolutely loved the play. Although I do agree about the volume, it was extremely loud. I left the theatre with a migraine. However; I do think that it was necessary for the performance to be loud if you take the age group of the audience into consideration.
