2025 Audience Reviews

Company: burnt ghost collective
Show: simone weil and the (insufferable) existentialist breakfast club
Venue: Theatre in the Round

A whimsically brief thinkpiece. With puppets.

(NOTE: FOR THE SAKE OF TRANSPARENCY I DELETED THIS REVIEW AND REUPLOADED IT WITH THE APPROPRIATE RATING, as I cannot edit after posting. Also I did not realize you couldn't do line breaks and as someone who struggles to read that is very annoying! :)) I digress) The show itself was well articulated, and they worked well in spite of the venue-- an open circle is a difficult prospect for figures that can only really face one direction, but they worked with it the way they best could, and I think it worked well. In the future I could see implementation of more interactive elements with the audience (though bluntly, Minneapolis residents are not particularly known for their willingness to participate as often as they seem to enjoy talking about it) The concept of the show was in my mind a bit of a thesis that challenges the redundancy of evolutionary thought in the name of 'praxis'. No philosopher regarded in the performance is put upon a pedestal. In fact, I feel that each character was examined critically through their dialogue even if it felt rushed in some places (45 minutes is not a great amount of time for a crash course on french philosophy, granted). It simultaneously regarded revolutionaries as important and perhaps too self-important, but also proves even bright thinkers to be tragically mundane and often foolish in spite of their admirable aspirations. It held a mirror up to radical leftism and asked us what commitment to anti-fascism actually is vs what we aspire for it to be. For me personally, it also spoke a rather poignant truth that was somewhat uncomfortable: we can't choose how we die or when, only what we do with our lives and our feelings while we live it. And the choices feel boundless. Do we choose every moment to be the best people we can be, violence be damned, or is that unreasonable in a World where most are rightly fearful of a meaningless death? Do we hold pride in proving that we are better than those who judge us? Does that actually work to our detriment? If we can utilize that to the benefit of others, how do we determine if we've been successful? Do other decide that for us instead, and does that matter? Do we, as those who aspire to Weil's steadfastness choose to throw our life away with the firm belief that it will mean something, somewhere, to anyone? Do we do that selflessly? Or would we do it because we felt we had something to prove? Is that worth the cost we say we will pay? Ultimately, I believe to be an absurdist is to choose to live openly and romantically with compassion because we accept that we cannot move a collective, but that we can still move ourselves. To live in wonder is one of the greatest acts of rebellion you can choose when you have little choice. So, for fear of crashing into a tree on the morrow I am going to choose to live today. I look forward to future productions. 0/