Reviews for Generic Ensemble Company Performances

Review: The Mikado Reclaimed by Generic Ensemble Company

Review: The Mikado Reclaimed by Generic Ensemble Company

by Michael Meigs
Published on February 23, 2016

They're not going to ask you if you liked the show. Anyone who likes what they see portrayed here is a dark and twisted soul.

At the talk-back following the performance they're not going to ask you if you liked the show.  Anyone who likes what they see portrayed here is a dark and twisted soul.   The co-director of the Vortex Repertory asks you to volunteer a word or phrase expressing your reaction to the relentlessly grim world of captivity and exploitation of Asian women, a Muslim woman and an Asian man who may be gay. That dark crude …

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Review: What's Goin' On? by Generic Ensemble Company

Review: What's Goin' On? by Generic Ensemble Company

by Stephen Meigs
Published on May 30, 2014

Yes,it's not Brechtt. No, that's not bad.

Okay, so I'm with other audience members, in the box office of the Vortex Theater, before the show starts. And the lady staff member says to us, "The show takes place all over the place, not just in the theater. It's out in the courtyard. It's in the theater. It's interactive. You can get involved or just watch."   Then she holds up 3 ribbons, each about 20 inches long - a red ribbon, a yellow …

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Review: What's Goin' On? by Generic Ensemble Company

Review: What's Goin' On? by Generic Ensemble Company

by Michael Meigs
Published on May 29, 2014

"Am I good?" It's easy and reassuring to divide all that we see and experience into Manichean opposites.  That's the sort of teaching that we encounter from very early in life: This is good. That is bad. But later, as we begin to understand that the world's a far more complicated place, those distinctions are harder to draw. Male; female. Black; white. Work; play.  Sincere; phony.  Optimism; pessimism.  Capitalism; socialism.  Rich; poor.  Liberated; oppressed.  Truth; lies.  Aren't they …

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Review: Stuck on GeeDot by Generic Ensemble Company

Review: Stuck on GeeDot by Generic Ensemble Company

by Michael Meigs
Published on January 30, 2010

La'arni Ayuma and Saray de Jesus play remarkably true to Beckett's dour comedy and prickly humor, while altering the text and dialogues completely.

Their choice of a company name offers a hint of the deadpan drollery of their approach to art and to the audience. In a town that whelps new theatre companies as if it were a puppy mill, these young women label themselves the "generic ensemble company."Generic as in "common" and "absolutely typical" or as in "no longer under patent" or, reaching a bit, as in "an embodiment of an abstract ideal." And generic as in …

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