What Defines A Play?

That is not a rhetorical question, because I want to know the answer. 

As you know, I am studying in London this quarter, and one of the classes I'm taking is a English Drama class. We get to see ten plays while we are here, and we saw out first one tonight. 

The play we saw was "If You Kiss Me, Kiss Me" at the Young Vic theater. 

First off, I am utterly confused as to how this could be considered a play. There was no dialogue! None! Zip! Zilch! Zero! The "play" was made up entirely of 80's rock songs. 

Here is the trailer if you want to know what I mean

Now that was cool, if only I was a fan of 80's rock and knew what all of the songs were and what they meant. Because without that context I was completely lost. 

Since I am one of those people who believes that if a story is told in song more than 50% of the time, it is a musical, then I believe that this "play" should have been considered a musical. I was completely thrown at how there was no obvious plot to the story. 

Now this performance was not completely terrible, there were a couple of PHENOMENAL dancers that I was in awe over the entire run. So in awe that I just stopped paying attention to the main character singing her heart out and just watched this guy dance. And I'm not even mad that I did that because he was amazing. 

This was my first crack at London theater, and the only thing I can say is that it really can't get worse. I'm looking forward to next week's play. Apparently there are a few well known actors in it, including a certain well loved Orange Is The New Black actress. Stay tuned :)

-Shawnee Smith

*I do not own any of the photos or videos on this post.