Et in Arcadia...

[magid]

This weekend I saw Arcadia (Stoppard) at the Loeb Ex. It's one of my favorite plays (math, history, romance, who could ask for anything more?). I've seen it before (in 2004 and 2005, plus a couple before I was on LJ (the shock! the horror! before LJ!)), so this was more a return to a lovely play than a breaking of new ground.

It was a fairly competent production. The one major issue I had was with diction: a lot of people's words weren't quite clear all the time, which was frustrating. The humor came through, though, and the audience was laughing a lot. Other than the diction, the actors were pretty good, though Nightingale was more of a parody than I've seen him played before. The minor issue was that the piano music during some parts were loud enough to interfere with the words, but it never tipped over into problematic. The set and costumes were reasonable and period enough to work. Men in tailcoats are always a good thing. (Plus the turtle. I don't know why I'm so amused by there being a turtle in the play, but I am.)

A pleasant way to spend a couple of hours, enhanced by having people there to talk it over with :-)

Comments

[fetteredwolf.livejournal.com]

Sorry I didn't show- we took a nap and got up late...

[magid.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it was something innocuous! And I hope it was a good nap :-)

[queue.livejournal.com]

Were they trying to do accents? Or do they just not know how to talk?

[magid.livejournal.com]

They did a bit with accents, but I don't think it was that, but more about projecting in general. Perhaps having the audience on two sides made it more difficult for them.

[breedingimperf.livejournal.com]

How did I miss the turtle? You'd think I'd have remembered *that*.

Glad it was fun.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Well, they mostly refer to it by name, not as "the turtle" or anything. Plus there's so much other stuff going on...