VANCOUVER – Despite receiving universally lukewarm reviews, 19-year old theatre major Kristen Stolley has declared her 5-show run on UBC Follies Rent to be the best thing that has ever happened to her.
“Just being out there and really doing it,” said Stolley, smoking a cigarette at the cast party. “That’s what it’s about. The first time I felt alive was when that curtain went up on opening night.”
Reviews criticized the occasional pitchiness of the singers and lack of onstage chemistry as lowlights of Stolley’s transformative stage experience. However, even the harshest reviews admitted that a bad production of Rent was still Rent and probably worth seeing if you liked the music.
“I never listen to reviews,” said Stolley, after receiving her first ever reviews. “How could critics understand what’s happening up on that stage, those actors and actresses putting their hearts and souls on display, emotions cannonballing to and fro across the boards? How can critics judge? Critics are merely the audience.”
Despite the collective shrug from critics, audience members seemed to enjoy the production, applauding all the way through one-and-a-half curtain calls.
“Wow, what a show! I can’t believe Kristen was able to memorize all those lines,” said Barbara Stolley, Kristen’s mother, when asked for feedback. “And she looked so pretty up there. Also, she, uh, she sure memorized a lot of lines!”
Stolley says that she plans to drop out in the next few weeks, along with her four best friends, to start a transgressive, underground theatre company that will exclusively put on original plays of middling quality.
“Theatre is alive. It is a living breathing thing,” said Stolley, parroting words of wisdom from her high school drama teacher. “And if we as actors are not creating then surely we are dying.”
At press time, several critics were struggling to write act two of their plays.
