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magidLast night I ushered for the last performance of ASP's production of Cymbeline (Shakespeare) (plot summary available at the Wikipedia link). I hadn't seen the play before, so I was particularly looking forward to it.
The plot is not of his finest, in that there was a lot of deus ex machina to make everything turn out in the rather Disney-fied way I could see was coming. I also hadn't figured out that Imogen was not the biological daughter of the queen, since there was much made of their relationship without any step or foster sort of stuff being mentioned (though I did know that the sons were the king's and not the queen's). The other plot issues I had were with geography and travel time: Wales has never been on the way from any English capital to Rome, and in those times (Shakespeare's or Roman Britain's), it took days and days to travel between them as well.
The production, however, was a lot of fun. It was staged in the round (well, long rectangle, anyway), with all the actors in sashed white outfits. How the sashes were worn and a few other hand-held items showed who was whom, since everyone had multiple roles. (And it wasn't until the end reveal scenes that people had to leap between roles in a single scene, either). The other really notable feature was the music, and sounds in general. There weren't any professional musicians, but when the actors weren't 'onstage', they were sitting to one side, where many musical instruments were placed; they were a cross between musicians and a Foley group as they unfolded paper, shook bells, tapped cymbals, and more. Those rustic Welsh had long rainsticks and digeridoos, while the beheading included fighting using a slide pennywhistle, and the poison was a little cranked music box. I don't know all the different things they used (one that had an intriguing sound I asked about as they were setting up (the advantages of ushering :-): I didn't get the name of the thing, but it turned out to be goats toes attached to a leather ring, to be shaken. It was fascinating, and kept everyone more involved, actors and audience.
The actors did a solid job with their roles, and there were lots of light funny moments, though it somehow didn't reach the levels of brilliance I've sometimes seen from this group. Still, lots of humor emphasized well. There weren't as many familiar faces as I'd expected either, though since this is the first of three plays they're doing in six weeks, as part of a "winter festival" (the other two are modern plays, oddly, though one is written by John Kuntz, who I totally adore)(totally irrelevant: last night I noticed that the font they chose for the winter festival part of the poster was tangrams! and all I could think about was Zombies v. Zombies :-).
The one thing I disliked about the show was the lighting, which had far too many exposed bulbs for me (I haven't figured out whether I'm just a whole lot more sensitive to this in general, or what, but it's been an issue with me in other shows, too.).
I'm very glad I went (the compulsive side of me particularly so, since it gets me closer to my goal of seeing all the plays performed :-).
The plot is not of his finest, in that there was a lot of deus ex machina to make everything turn out in the rather Disney-fied way I could see was coming. I also hadn't figured out that Imogen was not the biological daughter of the queen, since there was much made of their relationship without any step or foster sort of stuff being mentioned (though I did know that the sons were the king's and not the queen's). The other plot issues I had were with geography and travel time: Wales has never been on the way from any English capital to Rome, and in those times (Shakespeare's or Roman Britain's), it took days and days to travel between them as well.
The production, however, was a lot of fun. It was staged in the round (well, long rectangle, anyway), with all the actors in sashed white outfits. How the sashes were worn and a few other hand-held items showed who was whom, since everyone had multiple roles. (And it wasn't until the end reveal scenes that people had to leap between roles in a single scene, either). The other really notable feature was the music, and sounds in general. There weren't any professional musicians, but when the actors weren't 'onstage', they were sitting to one side, where many musical instruments were placed; they were a cross between musicians and a Foley group as they unfolded paper, shook bells, tapped cymbals, and more. Those rustic Welsh had long rainsticks and digeridoos, while the beheading included fighting using a slide pennywhistle, and the poison was a little cranked music box. I don't know all the different things they used (one that had an intriguing sound I asked about as they were setting up (the advantages of ushering :-): I didn't get the name of the thing, but it turned out to be goats toes attached to a leather ring, to be shaken. It was fascinating, and kept everyone more involved, actors and audience.
The actors did a solid job with their roles, and there were lots of light funny moments, though it somehow didn't reach the levels of brilliance I've sometimes seen from this group. Still, lots of humor emphasized well. There weren't as many familiar faces as I'd expected either, though since this is the first of three plays they're doing in six weeks, as part of a "winter festival" (the other two are modern plays, oddly, though one is written by John Kuntz, who I totally adore)(totally irrelevant: last night I noticed that the font they chose for the winter festival part of the poster was tangrams! and all I could think about was Zombies v. Zombies :-).
The one thing I disliked about the show was the lighting, which had far too many exposed bulbs for me (I haven't figured out whether I'm just a whole lot more sensitive to this in general, or what, but it's been an issue with me in other shows, too.).
I'm very glad I went (the compulsive side of me particularly so, since it gets me closer to my goal of seeing all the plays performed :-).