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magidI'm behind on my theater reviews again. *sigh* In the last couple of months, I've seen some good and some not so impressive shows.
On the plus side were ASP's Henry IV Part 1 and Henry IV Part 2, which were beautifully staged. The plays ran concurrently, so the stage was the same for both, with a rectangular stage between halves of the audience, with lots of approaches to the stage, and a balcony used for royal/canonical splendor at one end, balanced by a sometimes-curtained area for low-brow tavern-inhabiting folk (of whatever actual station). There was a lot of political manoevering back and forth (and it felt like the reason Henry IV got to demand the crown from the previous wearer were left murky, to me, at least), which after a while felt like too much detail for not enough payoff. The other part of the story was Henry V and Falstaff, and I think they were more central characters to the whole thing than the title character. In the end, these felt like Shakespeare was writing Henry V parts –2 and –1 (that perhaps could have been condensed to a single play).
That said, the productions were good, with some amazing sound and light making the space transform from battlefield to cathedral, and so on. There was much more music than I've heard in other Shakespeare shows, too, which was nice.
The less impressive shows were undergraduate productions at the Loeb Ex. And while they've always been undergrad productions, these felt not just low-budget, but not as engaging as shows in years gone by.
I've seen Six Characters in Search of an Author (Luigi Pirandello) before, and seem doomed to have seen my favorite, amazing production of it first, years ago in a grad production at Brandeis. This one held not a candle to it, having too many weak performances, made worse by too many in-jokes in the more improv sections, and people too frequently talking over each other or other sounds making it impossible to hear. I left feeling that it had potential, but never quite got around to finishing. (And the staging led to that as well, with the audience unclear whether the show had actually ended until the doors opened.)
The other was Antony and Cleopatra, which went on far too long, not helped by some random dancing girls, and weird video. I can understand choosing not to stage the battles, but if you choose to have video for those sections instead, (a) make sure the surface you're projecting onto is sufficiently flat, and (b) make them more obviously relevant, not just beetles fighting, or a mongoose and a snake. Not helpful either: some actors who spoke as quickly as possible to get through their lines, making them virtually incomprehensible.
On the plus side were ASP's Henry IV Part 1 and Henry IV Part 2, which were beautifully staged. The plays ran concurrently, so the stage was the same for both, with a rectangular stage between halves of the audience, with lots of approaches to the stage, and a balcony used for royal/canonical splendor at one end, balanced by a sometimes-curtained area for low-brow tavern-inhabiting folk (of whatever actual station). There was a lot of political manoevering back and forth (and it felt like the reason Henry IV got to demand the crown from the previous wearer were left murky, to me, at least), which after a while felt like too much detail for not enough payoff. The other part of the story was Henry V and Falstaff, and I think they were more central characters to the whole thing than the title character. In the end, these felt like Shakespeare was writing Henry V parts –2 and –1 (that perhaps could have been condensed to a single play).
That said, the productions were good, with some amazing sound and light making the space transform from battlefield to cathedral, and so on. There was much more music than I've heard in other Shakespeare shows, too, which was nice.
The less impressive shows were undergraduate productions at the Loeb Ex. And while they've always been undergrad productions, these felt not just low-budget, but not as engaging as shows in years gone by.
I've seen Six Characters in Search of an Author (Luigi Pirandello) before, and seem doomed to have seen my favorite, amazing production of it first, years ago in a grad production at Brandeis. This one held not a candle to it, having too many weak performances, made worse by too many in-jokes in the more improv sections, and people too frequently talking over each other or other sounds making it impossible to hear. I left feeling that it had potential, but never quite got around to finishing. (And the staging led to that as well, with the audience unclear whether the show had actually ended until the doors opened.)
The other was Antony and Cleopatra, which went on far too long, not helped by some random dancing girls, and weird video. I can understand choosing not to stage the battles, but if you choose to have video for those sections instead, (a) make sure the surface you're projecting onto is sufficiently flat, and (b) make them more obviously relevant, not just beetles fighting, or a mongoose and a snake. Not helpful either: some actors who spoke as quickly as possible to get through their lines, making them virtually incomprehensible.