Without permission from the artistic director, I can really only say that the show did well enough that it will be back next year absolutely in both the Twin Cities & Chicago and that the press we received opened up conversations and doors for Commedia Beauregard and the show itself that are a whole lot of awesome and exciting.
So, essentially what you're saying is that nobody knows anything about the Christmas Carol, and even if they did they're too stupid too make the conceptual leap to map the obvious concepts onto the well known concepts. Or the play is so badly written so that it obscures why things are happening.
Which is it?
Eep! Okay, that quote from Chris (Kidder), our Artistic Director, was taken just enough out of context that it really doesn't read well. This is one of the problems that arises when reporters pilfer from other news sources rather than getting their own material.
Star Trek and A Christmas Carol are both pretty well entrenched in our pop culture. The play was adapted to Klingon culture but is very reverent of its source material in Mr. Dickens' original work and everyone involved worked hard to create a show that would please theatre-goers regardless of their knowledge of either Star Trek or A Christmas Carol. Honestly, if someone knows nothing of both, they're going to be in for a pretty weird night. If they know a wee bit of Star Trek but are quite familiar with Dickens' A Christmas Carol, they'll be more fine. If you know just Dickens, some of the jokes will fly right by but that didn't stop a number of my friends from enjoying the show. If you are extremely familiar with both Star Trek and Dickens, sit back and get ready for a night of silly puns, thoughtful homage, and some batleth fight mayhem.
I did call it "our goofy little Klingon show", after all. **grin** However, to a certain extent, the show itself is "played" seriously because if you play it slapstick then you actually lose the humor and you completely lose the moments of emotion. There's a fine line you really have to ride. You need to respect the fans and the source material while still maintaining a certain amount of levity about the fact that you're donning ridges on your forehead & spitting on your scene partner every other syllable.:)
Re:You might want to double check your work...
on
A Klingon Christmas Carol
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Who cares? Folks can laugh as much as they want to. I was just an actor who wanted to do something fun and not really all that into Star Trek going into this. Their laughing at us doesn't change the fact that people came to see our show & had a blast. And it doesn't change how much fun we as a cast had doing it. Is it ridiculous? It could be considered as such. Revlayle is absolutely correct though - publicity is publicity, no matter glowing or groaning. The folks who want to dismiss it will always dismiss it. The others will come see it out of fandom or curiosity. The show itself does the rest. So again I say, if this is lame, I'll raise a glass & say Qapla'. It's not like we don't have a sense of humor about it ourselves.
Klingons don't consider things like compassion, kindness, and generosity, to be innately virtuous as we do in our culture, so I don't think it makes a lot of sense to translate this work into Klingon except as a purely academic exercise.
This would be true if they had done a direct translation. But our playwrights & translators actually adapted the show first to reflect the Klingon warrior code of honor & courage and then translated it from there. Instead of charity and goodwill, Scrooge must find his courage and honor.
Re:You might want to double check your work...
on
A Klingon Christmas Carol
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
So let me get this straight. Our goofy little Klingon show is lame. We had massive coverage in the Chicago area in all of the major papers (Trib, Sun-Times, Daily Herald) and had tv spots on WGN twice. We got the front page of the Wall Street Journal which lead to coverage by the BBC World Service, CBC, London Times, & Daily Telegraph... and then last night we got mentioned in Conan O'Brien's monologue.... and the night before that we got mentioned in Jimmy Fallon's monologue.... Quite frankly, if this is your definition of lame, then I don't want to be anything but lame for the rest of my life.
This is true. The Chicago production has managed to garner a lot of press and that's awesome but, as is often the case, people just don't do their homework before they go post crazy. This show would not exist without those who came before us (and still journey with us) in Minnesota. This is the 4th year up in the Twin Cities and the first year in Chicago. The Chicago production was entirely new and cast with Chicago actors. We performed simultaneously with the Twin Cities production for three weeks and then they closed but we performed one more additional week in Chicago. It was that final weekend when Mark Okrand came to see the show and the Wall Street Journal showed up that things blew up on the press front... sadly, it was 4 weeks too late for this year's show but helps ensure next year's show happens!:) ~Jen~
Correct me if I'm wrong, qurgh.... but I believe Christopher Plummer didn't like the way the literal translation sounded... so it was re adapted "To continue or not to continue". ~Jen~ Klingon Christmas Chicago cast member
Show started running in MN in 2007 as a one off holiday fundraiser for Commedia Beauregard. This is it's 4th year in MN and first year in Chicago. ~Jen~ Klingon Christmas Chicago cast member
Chicago's got lots of awesome experimental theatre and there's plenty of geeks in this town.:) We managed to wrangle up an entirely local cast, after all! A good number of us aren't even big Trek fans but actors who wanted to do something totally different and fun.
~Jen~ Klingon Christmas Chicago cast
Greenhouse Theatre Center...Last performance of Klingon Christmas was Sunday, Dec 19.
Lil Buds (or something like that) is a separate theatre company that performed the Frosty show. Their glitter got all over our Klingon costumes. Klingons shouldn't be glittery.
~Jen~
Klingon Christmas - Chicago cast
Slashdot Mirror
Without permission from the artistic director, I can really only say that the show did well enough that it will be back next year absolutely in both the Twin Cities & Chicago and that the press we received opened up conversations and doors for Commedia Beauregard and the show itself that are a whole lot of awesome and exciting.
So, essentially what you're saying is that nobody knows anything about the Christmas Carol, and even if they did they're too stupid too make the conceptual leap to map the obvious concepts onto the well known concepts. Or the play is so badly written so that it obscures why things are happening.
Which is it?
Eep! Okay, that quote from Chris (Kidder), our Artistic Director, was taken just enough out of context that it really doesn't read well. This is one of the problems that arises when reporters pilfer from other news sources rather than getting their own material.
Star Trek and A Christmas Carol are both pretty well entrenched in our pop culture. The play was adapted to Klingon culture but is very reverent of its source material in Mr. Dickens' original work and everyone involved worked hard to create a show that would please theatre-goers regardless of their knowledge of either Star Trek or A Christmas Carol. Honestly, if someone knows nothing of both, they're going to be in for a pretty weird night. If they know a wee bit of Star Trek but are quite familiar with Dickens' A Christmas Carol, they'll be more fine. If you know just Dickens, some of the jokes will fly right by but that didn't stop a number of my friends from enjoying the show. If you are extremely familiar with both Star Trek and Dickens, sit back and get ready for a night of silly puns, thoughtful homage, and some batleth fight mayhem.
I did call it "our goofy little Klingon show", after all. **grin** However, to a certain extent, the show itself is "played" seriously because if you play it slapstick then you actually lose the humor and you completely lose the moments of emotion. There's a fine line you really have to ride. You need to respect the fans and the source material while still maintaining a certain amount of levity about the fact that you're donning ridges on your forehead & spitting on your scene partner every other syllable. :)
Who cares? Folks can laugh as much as they want to. I was just an actor who wanted to do something fun and not really all that into Star Trek going into this. Their laughing at us doesn't change the fact that people came to see our show & had a blast. And it doesn't change how much fun we as a cast had doing it. Is it ridiculous? It could be considered as such. Revlayle is absolutely correct though - publicity is publicity, no matter glowing or groaning. The folks who want to dismiss it will always dismiss it. The others will come see it out of fandom or curiosity. The show itself does the rest. So again I say, if this is lame, I'll raise a glass & say Qapla'. It's not like we don't have a sense of humor about it ourselves.
Klingons don't consider things like compassion, kindness, and generosity, to be innately virtuous as we do in our culture, so I don't think it makes a lot of sense to translate this work into Klingon except as a purely academic exercise.
This would be true if they had done a direct translation. But our playwrights & translators actually adapted the show first to reflect the Klingon warrior code of honor & courage and then translated it from there. Instead of charity and goodwill, Scrooge must find his courage and honor.
So let me get this straight. Our goofy little Klingon show is lame. We had massive coverage in the Chicago area in all of the major papers (Trib, Sun-Times, Daily Herald) and had tv spots on WGN twice. We got the front page of the Wall Street Journal which lead to coverage by the BBC World Service, CBC, London Times, & Daily Telegraph... and then last night we got mentioned in Conan O'Brien's monologue.... and the night before that we got mentioned in Jimmy Fallon's monologue.... Quite frankly, if this is your definition of lame, then I don't want to be anything but lame for the rest of my life.
This is true. The Chicago production has managed to garner a lot of press and that's awesome but, as is often the case, people just don't do their homework before they go post crazy. This show would not exist without those who came before us (and still journey with us) in Minnesota. This is the 4th year up in the Twin Cities and the first year in Chicago. The Chicago production was entirely new and cast with Chicago actors. We performed simultaneously with the Twin Cities production for three weeks and then they closed but we performed one more additional week in Chicago. It was that final weekend when Mark Okrand came to see the show and the Wall Street Journal showed up that things blew up on the press front... sadly, it was 4 weeks too late for this year's show but helps ensure next year's show happens! :) ~Jen~
Correct me if I'm wrong, qurgh.... but I believe Christopher Plummer didn't like the way the literal translation sounded... so it was re adapted "To continue or not to continue". ~Jen~ Klingon Christmas Chicago cast member
Show started running in MN in 2007 as a one off holiday fundraiser for Commedia Beauregard. This is it's 4th year in MN and first year in Chicago. ~Jen~ Klingon Christmas Chicago cast member
Chicago's got lots of awesome experimental theatre and there's plenty of geeks in this town. :) We managed to wrangle up an entirely local cast, after all! A good number of us aren't even big Trek fans but actors who wanted to do something totally different and fun.
~Jen~ Klingon Christmas Chicago cast
Greenhouse Theatre Center...Last performance of Klingon Christmas was Sunday, Dec 19. Lil Buds (or something like that) is a separate theatre company that performed the Frosty show. Their glitter got all over our Klingon costumes. Klingons shouldn't be glittery. ~Jen~ Klingon Christmas - Chicago cast