Grain of Salt (first in a series)

My personal prejudices, so you can consider the source...

There are certain shows that probably aren't going to show up in my discussions of things I'm excited about. Doesn't mean they're not valid. They're just not for me.

"Don't Quit Your Day Job"
or
Just because it happened to you, doesn't mean it's interesting

There's a whole school of theater that would be better confined to a psychiatrist's office.

People seem compelled to purge all their feelings about their daily lives and particularly their day jobs in their art, if you can call it that.

Just because it happened to a human being doesn't automatically make it relevant or universal to the rest of us. Now, there are exceptions, and notable ones, to this. The specificity of detail able to be provided by someone who has literally done a certain job can ground a piece in reality and create a different world that many of us have not experienced. And the "workplace as alternative family" genre of storytelling has given us some really facinating art - theatre, TV, movies, you name it. But it's one of those things that can very easily be done badly. If the artist isn't reaching for something more than ranting against the injustice of the fact that they have to work for a living with people who don't appreciate art, well, that's not terribly interesting to me.

So if a blurb on a show has something to do with "recounting the artist's personal experiences...," chances are I probably won't be lining up for it. There are too many other things to choose from that I do have an interest in seeing. But that's just me...