Book of Mormon + Horse Girls
Oct. 7th, 2025 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI attended two theatrical productions this weekend! (In fact, I narrowly escaped attending three: Macbeth was on offer, but we ended up going to a cinema showing of Interview with the Vampire instead.)
First, I went to Book of Mormon, which I’ve wanted to see since 2014 despite a nagging feeling that possibly making a musical comedy about someone’s holy book was maybe not the best thing to do. However, I had a great time: the songs are super catchy and the show is a lot of fun, very energizing. I generally turn into a pumpkin around ten p.m. but did not pumpkin at all during the show!
Then I went to the Sunday matinee of Horse Girls, a play put on by the university theater department, whose productions range from “AMAZING” to “well, you tried.”
The lead actress was great, and the set designers were clearly having a ton of fun trying to cram as many different horse objects as they could into this twelve-year-old’s bedroom, but the script was… well. Let me just say, by the end of the play, there are three horse girls down. One gets boinked over the head with a riding trophy, another impaled on the surprisingly sharp ears of that selfsame riding trophy, and a third strangled with her own braid.
Also, the playwright seems to be under the impression that Anne Romney (wife of Mitt Romney) is some sort of patron saint of horse girls, as evidenced by the fact that when their stable is in trouble, our horse girls attempt to contact Anne Romney in the White House. (Oh, this play takes place in an alternate universe where Mitt Romney won the 2012 election, I guess.) And the director’s note is all about how Anne Romney originated or at least popularized the concept of the horse girl, which also makes me feel like I’ve stumbled into some bizarro alternate universe, because the horse girl has been around much longer than that? I’m sure there were horse girls in the 1990s if not before? Am I insane or is the director?
The director’s note also notes that horse girls are “often considered prissy, privileged, or just plain weird,” which seems like an unpromising set of assumptions to bring to the table when you are directing a play that is literally called Horse Girls. Although possibly exactly the assumption you want to bring to a play where the horse girls are homicidal maniacs.
First, I went to Book of Mormon, which I’ve wanted to see since 2014 despite a nagging feeling that possibly making a musical comedy about someone’s holy book was maybe not the best thing to do. However, I had a great time: the songs are super catchy and the show is a lot of fun, very energizing. I generally turn into a pumpkin around ten p.m. but did not pumpkin at all during the show!
Then I went to the Sunday matinee of Horse Girls, a play put on by the university theater department, whose productions range from “AMAZING” to “well, you tried.”
The lead actress was great, and the set designers were clearly having a ton of fun trying to cram as many different horse objects as they could into this twelve-year-old’s bedroom, but the script was… well. Let me just say, by the end of the play, there are three horse girls down. One gets boinked over the head with a riding trophy, another impaled on the surprisingly sharp ears of that selfsame riding trophy, and a third strangled with her own braid.
Also, the playwright seems to be under the impression that Anne Romney (wife of Mitt Romney) is some sort of patron saint of horse girls, as evidenced by the fact that when their stable is in trouble, our horse girls attempt to contact Anne Romney in the White House. (Oh, this play takes place in an alternate universe where Mitt Romney won the 2012 election, I guess.) And the director’s note is all about how Anne Romney originated or at least popularized the concept of the horse girl, which also makes me feel like I’ve stumbled into some bizarro alternate universe, because the horse girl has been around much longer than that? I’m sure there were horse girls in the 1990s if not before? Am I insane or is the director?
The director’s note also notes that horse girls are “often considered prissy, privileged, or just plain weird,” which seems like an unpromising set of assumptions to bring to the table when you are directing a play that is literally called Horse Girls. Although possibly exactly the assumption you want to bring to a play where the horse girls are homicidal maniacs.
