![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidLast night I went to ASP's final production of the season, King John. I've not seen this before, so it was interesting to see the twists and turns of the plot (especially how Eleanor is portrayed, since I have a soft spot for her; luckily I didn't see this play before I ran into her in other places!), the shifts and reversals, the betrayals and family in-fighting.
The space was not one I'd been in before, in the basement of St. Paul's Cathedral, opposite Park St. station. It was a nice space, reasonably high ceilings (with ceiling fans), stone walls, and a labyrinth overlaying the wood floor. The only major drawback was that the rumble of trains was clear every time one came into Park St., which was frequently. When there was music playing, it was covered up, but much of the time, it was audible.
(There were notes about the building in the program, mentioning how they host many different groups (including a Muslim prayer group), and listing some of the staff. One has a great title: Minister for Radical Welcome :-)
On the plus side, the lighting design was much better than many of their recent productions, by which I mean I wasn't stuck with a spotlight bulb I could see all the time. There were spotlights, but they were smaller, and a lot of the lights were lower than usual, at waist height on a table, or the floor, or a movable spot shifted around by the crew. It meant that the play had many more shadows than most, and I thought it worked. It helped that they'd put it in modern times, so it made sense to have the kings in front of a spot as if they were being broadcast, or talking into mini cassette recorders, and battles shown from the perspective of the men on each side with laptops flicking among maps and diagrams of assalt weapon capabilities and so on.
In the midst of all the political wrangling, there are humorous moments, mostly from the lines of the bastard, Coeur de Lion's by-blow acknowledged at the beginning of the play. I'm glad he was there; it would have been very heavy going without him. And the ending felt a bit artificial; it felt off to have a monk (a) have that kind of access, and (b) do that kind of act. Plus the Dauphin still had as good a claim after John's death as before, so why stop pressing his suit then against Henry? (I admit, I hit exhaustion just before the end, so I likely missed a few telling details...)
As always, I enjoyed the play; the actors did a great job. Well, except the kid who played Arthur, who was (understandably) not at the same level. And I didn't care much for some of the accents (especially Austria's, though he totally looked the part). It was strange to see John Kuntz playing a serious role, no humor whatsoever.
The play wraps up this weekend.
Next year's line-up: Merchant of Venice (Nov. 6 - Dec. 7), The Duchess of Malfi (John Webster, Jan.8 - Feb. 1), Coriolanus (Mar. 12- Apr. 5), and Much Ado About Nothing (May 14 - June 14), the common thread being the role of the ousider.
PS. I forgot to mention that it's almost in the round, in that most of the audience is on two opposite sides of the stage area, and one row between them.
The space was not one I'd been in before, in the basement of St. Paul's Cathedral, opposite Park St. station. It was a nice space, reasonably high ceilings (with ceiling fans), stone walls, and a labyrinth overlaying the wood floor. The only major drawback was that the rumble of trains was clear every time one came into Park St., which was frequently. When there was music playing, it was covered up, but much of the time, it was audible.
(There were notes about the building in the program, mentioning how they host many different groups (including a Muslim prayer group), and listing some of the staff. One has a great title: Minister for Radical Welcome :-)
On the plus side, the lighting design was much better than many of their recent productions, by which I mean I wasn't stuck with a spotlight bulb I could see all the time. There were spotlights, but they were smaller, and a lot of the lights were lower than usual, at waist height on a table, or the floor, or a movable spot shifted around by the crew. It meant that the play had many more shadows than most, and I thought it worked. It helped that they'd put it in modern times, so it made sense to have the kings in front of a spot as if they were being broadcast, or talking into mini cassette recorders, and battles shown from the perspective of the men on each side with laptops flicking among maps and diagrams of assalt weapon capabilities and so on.
In the midst of all the political wrangling, there are humorous moments, mostly from the lines of the bastard, Coeur de Lion's by-blow acknowledged at the beginning of the play. I'm glad he was there; it would have been very heavy going without him. And the ending felt a bit artificial; it felt off to have a monk (a) have that kind of access, and (b) do that kind of act. Plus the Dauphin still had as good a claim after John's death as before, so why stop pressing his suit then against Henry? (I admit, I hit exhaustion just before the end, so I likely missed a few telling details...)
As always, I enjoyed the play; the actors did a great job. Well, except the kid who played Arthur, who was (understandably) not at the same level. And I didn't care much for some of the accents (especially Austria's, though he totally looked the part). It was strange to see John Kuntz playing a serious role, no humor whatsoever.
The play wraps up this weekend.
Next year's line-up: Merchant of Venice (Nov. 6 - Dec. 7), The Duchess of Malfi (John Webster, Jan.8 - Feb. 1), Coriolanus (Mar. 12- Apr. 5), and Much Ado About Nothing (May 14 - June 14), the common thread being the role of the ousider.
PS. I forgot to mention that it's almost in the round, in that most of the audience is on two opposite sides of the stage area, and one row between them.