This week was pretty boring, outside of class stuff. I just had papers and homework and some Journaling/Illustrating catch-up for Interrelationships so most of my spare time went to that instead of going to a museum, which is what I really wanted to do. Then my evenings were all eaten up because it was a four show week! Starting at the top...
Monday we saw Private Lives, which was good, because it has a good script, but I didn't care for the production as a whole. Some of the acting was great.....some was kinda special. The set was cool but it was raised up about 6 feet off the deck, and being in the second row it really cut us off, particularly for the second act. It was raised because in the first act it's supposed to be a balcony. In the second act it's an apartment, and makes less sense for it to be raised up. I think they could have dropped it two or three feet and gotten the same effect with fewer sight line issues. But that's just me. The actress in the lead came in to talk to us in Interrelationships on Thursday, and she was really nice! I'd like to see her in something else because I don't think this was her strongest performance, because she wasn't really right for the role, but would be much better in another show.
Tuesday we saw Complicit, which was at the Old Vic and directed by Kevin Spacey. Richard Dreyfuss was in the lead role. It was the worst piece of theatre I have ever seen in my entire life. SO BAD! Words can't even properly describe it. For one thing, Dreyfuss didn't know his lines so he had an earpiece feeding them to him. Hey there, unprofessional, learn your lines! The script needed some major workshopping. The actress playing the wife was not up to the task, the only one of the three actors who could actually act was the one who wasn't American. It's basically the one really Americanized piece of theatre in London, and we were all pretty offended by it. The theatre has been changed from a proscenium to in the round, which was kinda cool since we were sitting on the "balcony" on the original stage. The floor of the set belonged in Who Wants to be a Millionaire. It was bad enough that at least one of our group left at the interval, and a number of others considered it. Then they got a couple of drinks and reconsidered, and came back to watch the rest of the train wreck.
Wednesday was Spring Awakening (the musical), which was SO GOOD! Particularly in comparison to Complicit (then again, nearly everything is). The music was great, the set and whole set up was fantastic, great lighting, some of the singing was better than others (it was clear that some of the cast, aged between 16 and 23, needed better voice-training and the schedule was wearing out their voices), and overall very well done. I was even surprised by people coming out of trap doors in the floor when the stage was covered in fog, which is especially surprising because as a scenic designer and painter, I can usually read a floor like a map. These trap doors were invisible, I couldn't even see them afterwards when I was REALLY looking for them. Incredible. We stayed after for a talk-back, and the cast told us how they had a year of auditions, and in one of the final rounds of call-backs, they housed them all together, and they had to room with the other people up for their part! Yikes! One thing was that the design and basically the whole production was basically a stamp of the New York production, and I'm not sure how I feel about that, it didn't sound like the actors had much freedom to discover their roles for themselves.
Last but not least was Taming of the Shrew, which (although lonnnnnnng) I really enjoyed. The costumes began modern, then when the play within the play began, transitioned to Elizabethanesque Garb, then slooooooowly transitioned back to modern. It was interesting, and a cool concept, but I think they could have done it a little more smoothly. There was at least one big leap taken when they could have broken it up a little more. The set was for the most part, very well done and interesting although there were a couple choices I didn't think completely worked. It was VERY well directed and acted though, which was great.
That's basically my week, next time I post will probably be after my Paris trip next weekend, so there should be photos and lots of things to say. Thanks for wading through the play reviews!
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