IGNORE IT! I have long held a view that the proper treatment for offensive, salacious, obscene entertainment material which comes my way is to ignore it. If I happened to view a TV show I did not like I felt I wrongly favored and gave it a measure of approval simply by recognizing it existed. I learned long ago that people who produce such material see negative comments as an indication they have "touched a nerve or two out there" and they do all they can to enhance the lewd factors which bring in such reactions.
I have been unaware of the fact that it even existed until I chanced upon a feature article - not an advertisement which will come later - in the Norwich Evening NEWS - noting that a new dramatic presentation which has been "the smash hit" of London's West End. The production - now on road tour - comes to the stage of my favorite theaters - Theatre Royale
in the city of Norwich, Norfolk County, about a hundred miles northeast of London.
The trouble begins with the title. This strange creation, written by Stewart Lee (Director/writer) and composer Richard Thomas who did the lyrics also. They chose to develop their play entitled "JERRY SPRINGER:THE OPERA" after being performed at the Edinburgh (Scotland) "Fringe Festival" in the summer of 2002. The "plot" of the opera is outlined for us:
"Basically the plot ....involves one day in the life of the talk show host (said to be "America's favorite") with two sets of guests. There are tap-dancing Ku Klux Klan members with a burning cross, dancing nurses and forty Jerry Springer look-alikes all singing en masse on stage.
"The theme the talk show is What's My Secret? Guests include an obese man cheating on his prissy wife with a fat hippy and a transvestite with a heart of gold and a man telling his fiance that he wants to be a baby and pulls off his suit to reveal white nappies! Jerry is shot dead by his fired warm-up guy, and goes to hell and has to reconcile Satan and Jesus. God tries to save him and a dead guest argues that he isn't bad at all, he just holds a mirror to people's failings and desires and in the end of the day everyone just wants their Jerry Springer moment, their fifteen seconds of fame."
That's the gist of this dramatic achievement. If any of my friends in the Norwich area can tell me some redeeming factors, I'd be willing to take a second look at it.
The next three nights of this next week folks are going to be shelling out from five-pounds to twenty-seven-fifty to see this startling revelation of life in America and 5 or 27:50 ain't goobers.
After all, it's probably still best to simply ignore this sort of thing.
A.L.M. May 5, 2006 [c482wds]
