Grumpy me @ plays I've seen

Okay let's do this.

I saw the past two weeks two plays, and they were.... for lack of better words: bad.

I mean, they had their own charm and I really enjoyed the backdrops and the props and the lights, and sound, but is it actually a good play if the audience enjoy the props more than the actual story? Haha, I forgot, it's because both of these plays LACKED STORY and this is one of my biggest pet peeves of theatre ever and I don't get it how critics AND the artsy farsty directors find that desirable.

Hell, for one of the plays I had to take up the pamflet and actually read what the hell was going on, in the middle of the play. If you need to write the storyline of the play down and share it to the audience to keep the audience on track, then you're doing hell of a poor job as director and playwright. I hate when directors focuse more on themes than an actual story.

None of the characters had names, and in the end, you didn't even care about them. If the audience doesn't care about your characters they don't care about the plot either so why should they care about the play?

I get so annoyed and arrogant because in the end I'm no professional, only someone who cares greatly about plays and theatre, but I have an opinion and my opinion is that plays like these are shit. Give the story more focus, instead of giving the audience a trip because light effects are cool.

Yes, light effects are cool. But not anymore after five minutes of flashing without a reason to do so, only to give a boner to the guy who designed the whole thing. Fucking hell.

I sound like an old grumpy lady. I know. But I become grumpy when characters are wasted in favour of themes or effects. Lost potential, basically.

If I one day become a playwright with actual influence (which is not going to happen, but one can dream) I'll never ever write a play with only a theme and characters without names.