Yesterday, I went to see Cirque Du Soleil's Wintuk at Madison Square Garden. I had very high expectations for this show, this being my fifth time seeing Cirque and having been so impressed by the quality of all their other shows. Furthermore, my and my mom had been wanting to see this show since last year, and the anticipation made me want to see it even more. In addition, the advertising for Wintuk was heavy.

Tantalizingly Bizarre. Those two words sum up how i felt about Heiner Muller's Quartett. After a weeks worth of anticipatory class room discussion based on texts, I was looking forward to seeing the beast itself live on stage.

At first it was a bit jarring, and I struggled to make sense of it all between the captions and all the eccentric activity on stage.

       After reading Jerrica's blog entry on Quartet, I decided to give the analysis of this play another shot. What particularly struck me about Jerrica's insight of the play was its attention to sexuality and innocence. Why are the two so closely correlated? Is this idea founded in religion? Why is sex an ungodly act? To say it is sinful is not sufficient. Does sex provide us with revelations about the power of man and not god? In Quartet, the text was very centered on how innocence ruined sexuality. Being innocent was being one step closer to hell.

 When I left the Harvey theater after seeing Quartett, my emotions were of a mixed miriad. I didn't really know what to think and how to possibly start dissecting the many frustrating aspects of Quartett. This was the general response form my peers as well, in face, no one knew how to interpret or understand what they had just seen. There was just no fluidity or cohesion between any of the many theatrical parts we had just seen thrown together on stage. 

The performance we saw at BAM was one of the oddest shows I've ever seen. It was entertaining and interesting at some points, and mind-numbingly boring at others. Sometimes it was compelling, other times it was excruciatingly annoying. The most annoying part was definitely near the beginning when Marquise was moving in a circle and repeating the same few lines over and over and over and over... in French.