Font Travesties

And now a blog entry for everyone who has requested more Broadway news from the ETR team... I saw Tom Stoppard's new play Rock 'N' Roll last night and thought the writing, directing, acting, and staging were great, especially Rufus Sewell in Act II.

I will take issue with the production's atrocious use of fonts and video effects in a series of projected titles. That wouldn't be a big deal usually, but this play has a lot of titles. It opens in the wake of the USSR's invastion of Czechoslovakia's in 1968 and follows the lives of Max Morrow, a British academic and unrepentant Communist Party member, and Jan, a Czech student who becomes a dissident as a result of his love for rock music, particularly the Czech indie band The Plastic People of the Universe.

Between every scene, a screen lowers, and a relevant rock song plays for about 30 seconds. Then the title, writing credits, recording session information and label notes for the song are projected on the screen. It's more than just a cheap theatrical device -- it crystallizes the rebellious nature of the music, the pervasive record-keeping of both Jan and the Czech Communist Party, and the mood of the era (as well as, I suppose, offering time for hair and make-up changes).

So Jan's rock music and his Nick Hornby-esque dedication to the minutiae of it are a key to understanding his personal rebellion against the system. And in that sense the title screens are an essential part of the play ... but they're hideous.

A mish-mash of tacky fonts and cut-rate video effects (swirling and glowing text) suggest that a grade school child got access to AfterEffects and went wild. Or, possibly, Trevor Nunn hired a graphic designer who previously worked on karaoke videos. As a polite theater-goer, I did not take any photographs during the performance, but here is an approximation of what the titles looked like:



By the way, I'm only talking about the text-based graphics used during the show. The production materials are actually pretty cool, and I was tempted to buy a t-shirt:

http://www.rocknrolltheplay.com/

And the play itself is great, so go see it.

Next time: I dissect the kerning and margin spacing of Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day.

The Eye of the Tiger

Seven members of the ETR team joined the gym across the street on Monday.

So far, I am in a four-way tie for most gym visits.*

Until we get some pictures up on our website, you'll have no way of recognizing me, but the next time you're at the gym and you see a guy with glasses on the treadmill rocking out to a podcast about modern British theatre, that just might be me.

*Current record is one gym visit.