Six Characters in Search of an Author
Nov. 1st, 2008 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidThursday night, Queue, his E, and I went to Brandeis for an undergraduate performance of Six Characters in Search of an Author (Luigi Pirandello). I'd seen it once before, the first play I'd gone to as part of a Brandeis theater subscription many years ago (just checked: it's the first season they list online; I saw it in the fall of 1994 (!)), and it stayed with me as a play of intensity and layers within layers, meta over meta. In short, worth seeing again.
Unfortunately, the actors in BET (I immediately thought "Black Entertainment, er, something beginning with T," but it's Brandeis Ensemble/Experimental Theater) weren't nearly as talented as I would have hoped*. One managed to read something in such a monotone that I couldn't pick out any actual words, though I was sure it was English. Another had only one tone of voice. And so on. The discussions of art and the life it takes on, all the interesting philosophical discussions, were made so flat that it was hard to follow the ideas. I'd really like to see another production of this play, with more solid performers.
Another thing that didn't really work: having some of the audience on either side of the stage. There are times and places to do this, if there's a good reason, but if it's just for the sake of being 'interesting,' it's not the right time.
On the plus side, the people doing costuming and set design did a nice job. The six were in evocative-of-period clothing, with lovely intricate masks (the boy and girl in plain white, with oversized white masks, emphasizing their being mostly props rather than characters in their own right), and when they set the scene for the garden, rectangles with trees cut out descended, and some lovely little lights came down as well. It didn't make up for the inherent weakness of the show, unfortunately.
* I go to undergrad shows at Harvard in the Loeb Ex, and they're pretty good, though the mainstage productions are generally lacking.
Unfortunately, the actors in BET (I immediately thought "Black Entertainment, er, something beginning with T," but it's Brandeis Ensemble/Experimental Theater) weren't nearly as talented as I would have hoped*. One managed to read something in such a monotone that I couldn't pick out any actual words, though I was sure it was English. Another had only one tone of voice. And so on. The discussions of art and the life it takes on, all the interesting philosophical discussions, were made so flat that it was hard to follow the ideas. I'd really like to see another production of this play, with more solid performers.
Another thing that didn't really work: having some of the audience on either side of the stage. There are times and places to do this, if there's a good reason, but if it's just for the sake of being 'interesting,' it's not the right time.
On the plus side, the people doing costuming and set design did a nice job. The six were in evocative-of-period clothing, with lovely intricate masks (the boy and girl in plain white, with oversized white masks, emphasizing their being mostly props rather than characters in their own right), and when they set the scene for the garden, rectangles with trees cut out descended, and some lovely little lights came down as well. It didn't make up for the inherent weakness of the show, unfortunately.
* I go to undergrad shows at Harvard in the Loeb Ex, and they're pretty good, though the mainstage productions are generally lacking.
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Date: 2008-11-02 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-02 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-02 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-02 11:12 pm (UTC)(And if you come for a visit, I'll try to make a theater outing happen.)