Patrick was in town with his friend Aiden on vacation seeing lots of theatre. He had told me months ago that they were going to see Einstein on the Beach and asked if I was interested. I had not yet heard that the show can been revived. I had wanted to see the show because Evan had taken me to see some small Seattle theatre troupe perform a part of it, and because Garrett told me that he had seen it years ago. I think the show had not been performed in more than 20 years. It is a difficult show to perform. The show included a lot of dancers, a choir, enough actors to fill stage scenes twice over, orchestration, and a massive and elaborate set. It is about six hours with no intermission. We saw it at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on 23 September.
The show was beautiful. The imagery seemed fresh to me but some of the lyrics were dated. Many of the poems recited during the show were written by a young person who had not previously been involved in writing for art, and he included the names of United States celebrities which no longer have societal meaning in America and never had relevance in other countries. It often bothers me when a performance’s relevance is trapped in a point in time or within a particular culture, and not able to be understand at other times or translated for other cultures.
Patrick and I took a short break during part of the show but Aiden stayed with it in entirety. It was beautiful and I would see it again. The length of the show makes it an exercise in boredom despite every part of it being compelling to experience. I would see it again if the opportunity arose and it is the kind of piece that I would want to show someone outside of my culture to represent my culture, despite the celebrity name dropping.