I finished reading 13 but with a theme of suicide and a worse protagonist the musical today and my fucking god. Itâs. Wow.
- itâs formatted fucky. this was the for sell copy and it was annoying formatted to where we (my class) had to flip back multiple pages between songs
- It really wanted to be prose. Like there were paragraphs of âââactionsâââ that werenât actions at all and it was really annoying. Stop with the pretentious prose and get to what the fuck these characters are doing.
- the dialogue is so unnatural. People donât talk this way. Subject changes happen at thw wrong time, and all the women (especially Zoe) talk with the same style. Itâs annoying.
- onto the women actuually, Zoe has no consistent personality. She is literally just a character that shapes to whatever fits best in the situation. Sucks because sheâs such a major character in the narrative that if she had a personality that lasted more than 10 seconds at a time she could be the most interesting character in this hell musical. A similar issue pops up with Alana in that sheâs interesting and practically like Evan but not a disgusting human being. Thereâs no closure for her Character. I canât tell if this story was trying to villify Heidi or not?? Like at times it really REALLY seems they are and at other times itâs not, in the end itâs apparently not but as the ending is rushed. Cynthia is under developed (especially compared to Larry who had no fucking right to get developed, fuck you)
- The pacing is probably the most blaring issue. Itâs typical that youâll see 3 narrative acts pushed in 2 acts in theater (especially musical theater) because they wanna be movies, but this is a slightly rarer case where there isnât a second act. Of course this isnât actually a 1 act, the universe hates me too much for that. Instead this first act goes on for the entire play, it is drawn out, the majority of the first act and like 4 scenes away from the end. Itâs so fucking borrringgg. Then, suddenly, instead of an ending that has any real closure it snaps off and everything id gine and uwuwwuwuw Evan fixed my family.
- Words Fail is a fucking evil song. Itâs a villain song. Itâs literally a villain song, itâs so laughably try hard and desperate ti tug at your heart strings. I wanted to bash Evanâs skull in. That brings me to the biggest problem witj the story itself; Whenever it gets close, or once or twice actually does, the story (not nessacarily the Character of Evan himself) is sure to mention that heâs SOOOO anxious and sad and oh my goodness his dad left him have we told you heâs sad and anxious?????????? This is a painfully obvious attempt to make the audience sympathetic to him. Itâs pitiful. Imagine being so much of a coward that you canât let your Character do anything less than perfect without going âBut Heâs just sad thatâs why he does it!â 60 times afterward? How does that qualify as anything but bad? And like, Evan is the only main Character who gets this. Zoe, Alana, Heidi are all instantly hated for anything less than perfect that they do, either by indirectly saying it or making poor baby Evan suddenly feel ânauseousâ or âhis hands clam upâ
- this story isnât sad at all if it werenât for the fact that every single Character sounded like they were crying regardless of if the Character was happy or sad or angry. Itâs not a conincidence, itâs lazy writing. When you want to make your audience feel something despite writing a boring and/or enraging musical? Make them cry. Actors can probably back me up here, there are so many actors who have the dramatic range of a dead fish but because they can cry on q and use it A LOT, theyâre considered great actors. The same applies to writing, hack writers/directors will make characters constantly cry (or sound like theyâre crying) to trigger empathy in their audience when they either canât figure out or are too lazy to work to make the audience cry naturally through suspense, good dialogue, and realistic relationships. Also, plot points (especially in the second act) are raised and then dropped and thatâs judt really fucking annoying and prevented me from getting even slightly emotionally invested in it. Iâm just so tired with narratives about menâs anxiety and depression being about how theyâre allowed to be bad people now.
Itâs also painfully unfunny when it tries to be, but that ties into the bad dialogue. I cannot sympathize or empathize with Evan AT ALL. I have tried and I have listened to why other people do, and I havenât been able to piece it together. The answers Iâve got for the most part are:
1) I donât know (This one is obvious, and can be explained by the hack writing as described above)
2) Projection (Youâre either REALLY projecting or a terrible person, probably the first. This is valid, but I cannot see how. Are we such babies that a story screaming âHE HAS ANXIETY LIKE YOU THEATER KID!!!â over and over again will make us love the Character?)
Psychoanalyzing people for how and why they like and empathize with Evan would be a field day. How do people not see how unapologetically and desperately emotionally manipulative it is? The more I think about it the more it kinda grosses me out. This is aimed at teens, you canât really claim otherwise, and particularly the friendless anxious variety. And instead of using the power of having a fragile audience to help them grow into better people or to make them look critically at their actions or do look for help, it just does the bare minimum of acknowledging their existence. In fact there are times Iâd even claim itâs got some REALLY BAD ideas for a play that takes itâs mental health aspect seriously (going off medication for anxiety and depression and showing it as something that will actually help you grow as a better person is reckless and also just, not true, even anti-medicine freaks would probably agree) itâs so reckless and I hate to see so many kids falling for it.
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