Preliminary Play Review
Jul. 20th, 2006 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lodessa I'd been planning on going to opening night tonight, and then Davis called Tatiana and asked if we wanted to come last night, so we did. Now I'd heard rave reviews about their first effort, so I have to say I had high hopes. I was perplexed and didn't know what to make of what I got instead. What I didn't know going in was that this year, one of the actors was the playwright(this was not the intention. The actor they cast in the role had to drop out, but that lets you know the playwright is an amateur rather than someone extablished). This revalation made the whole thing make more sense and changed my judgement to something much more favorable. I don't want to really make a decisive statement until I see the actual opening performance tonight, but I felt like the experience and the piece itself was worth talking about, even if I had some doubts about it.
First a few more words on Barnyard. As their name implies, the company puts on their shows in a barn... like with straw and a tin roof and single board walls and lofts. To get to the site you have to drive 10 minutes outside of town and then turn off onto a bumpy gravel road. Okay, that sounds really negative but honestly it isn't. It gives the whole thing character in a way, and, at least for some plays, really adds to the ambiance.
So the play, which I don't even know the name of... It was about this guy, who'd been the only member of his group to survive in a battle 13 years before, his wife is kidnapped and he is forced back into the army with promises that they will find her, just as soon as they destroy the savages hiding in the next kingdom, who kidnapped her. The play had some achingly beautiful scenes between the husband and wife, with gorgeous post modern retcon. It also had some lovely little domestic scenes with the protagonist and his daughter. Of course then we had the war plotline, which is of course very socially appropriate and really had a lot of potential, what with the growing feeling that the general was lying to everyone and that there were no savages. They were trying to do too much. There was this weird overly expidited modernization plotline. The war industry plotline lacked the grace of the stuff between the husband and wife, and the contrast might have been good but I feel like it just needed work. Some of the plot points and their connections to other scenes were unclear. There was a ton of symbolism tied up in a red ribbon which started to lose all meaning because I suspect they were trying to do something too complicated with it. They had a chorus/narrator, who was sort of awesome and sort of horrible. It may just have been one too many elements. Overall the play suffered from the kind of too grand ambitions that mark my own work(although it wasn't something I would have written). For a first run it was impressive, for a novice work, and I dearly hope he takes the script and reworks it and goes on to create great things because I see vast potential and maybe 50 years from now they will talk about how this play is a mess but you can see the promise of his later greatness in it... Or he could never write anything ever again.
The actual production was somewhat lacking. I think that they all knew the script was a mess but didn't want to talk about it and instead were just not really commiting to their performances... that or some of them were just really lousy actors. Actually it almost seemed like Steven(the director) had possibly directed them to perform in some weird stylized way that failed because they were sort of too consistant in their not rightness for it to be organic. The one exception was Zoe, who played the chorus/narrator. She really look a stand and was harsh and forboding and almost musical in the ugliness or her delivery. I am not sure I agreed with her performance, but I have to respect that she took a stand, unlike everyone else. The barn was a great location for the play though... perfect atmosphere and the lights and sounds and weird mask for the tribesman were wonderfully done and actually somewhat terrifying. Oh, and they had a rotating audience... not a rotating stage, oh no, a rotating audience. Which worked better than I expected, although they still needed to work on the transitions a little with it. So they have to get points for that. The costumes were weird and haphazard and the soldiers looked like firemen and the girls had weird open crisscrossing backs and it just was off. So I'm hoping they do better tonight and it transforms the eperience, after all you know what they say about bad dress rehersals...
Expect more commentary tommorrow.
Two Unrelated things:
1) Where are good communities to post BtVS and AtS fic? I've written two now and I have no idea where to post them. They took a lot of work to write so I'd like someone to see them, other than just the person whom I wrote them for.
2) Would anyone be willing to beta my hp reversathon fic? I'd give it to you tommorrow and want it back by monday if possible (wednesday if not).
First a few more words on Barnyard. As their name implies, the company puts on their shows in a barn... like with straw and a tin roof and single board walls and lofts. To get to the site you have to drive 10 minutes outside of town and then turn off onto a bumpy gravel road. Okay, that sounds really negative but honestly it isn't. It gives the whole thing character in a way, and, at least for some plays, really adds to the ambiance.
So the play, which I don't even know the name of... It was about this guy, who'd been the only member of his group to survive in a battle 13 years before, his wife is kidnapped and he is forced back into the army with promises that they will find her, just as soon as they destroy the savages hiding in the next kingdom, who kidnapped her. The play had some achingly beautiful scenes between the husband and wife, with gorgeous post modern retcon. It also had some lovely little domestic scenes with the protagonist and his daughter. Of course then we had the war plotline, which is of course very socially appropriate and really had a lot of potential, what with the growing feeling that the general was lying to everyone and that there were no savages. They were trying to do too much. There was this weird overly expidited modernization plotline. The war industry plotline lacked the grace of the stuff between the husband and wife, and the contrast might have been good but I feel like it just needed work. Some of the plot points and their connections to other scenes were unclear. There was a ton of symbolism tied up in a red ribbon which started to lose all meaning because I suspect they were trying to do something too complicated with it. They had a chorus/narrator, who was sort of awesome and sort of horrible. It may just have been one too many elements. Overall the play suffered from the kind of too grand ambitions that mark my own work(although it wasn't something I would have written). For a first run it was impressive, for a novice work, and I dearly hope he takes the script and reworks it and goes on to create great things because I see vast potential and maybe 50 years from now they will talk about how this play is a mess but you can see the promise of his later greatness in it... Or he could never write anything ever again.
The actual production was somewhat lacking. I think that they all knew the script was a mess but didn't want to talk about it and instead were just not really commiting to their performances... that or some of them were just really lousy actors. Actually it almost seemed like Steven(the director) had possibly directed them to perform in some weird stylized way that failed because they were sort of too consistant in their not rightness for it to be organic. The one exception was Zoe, who played the chorus/narrator. She really look a stand and was harsh and forboding and almost musical in the ugliness or her delivery. I am not sure I agreed with her performance, but I have to respect that she took a stand, unlike everyone else. The barn was a great location for the play though... perfect atmosphere and the lights and sounds and weird mask for the tribesman were wonderfully done and actually somewhat terrifying. Oh, and they had a rotating audience... not a rotating stage, oh no, a rotating audience. Which worked better than I expected, although they still needed to work on the transitions a little with it. So they have to get points for that. The costumes were weird and haphazard and the soldiers looked like firemen and the girls had weird open crisscrossing backs and it just was off. So I'm hoping they do better tonight and it transforms the eperience, after all you know what they say about bad dress rehersals...
Expect more commentary tommorrow.
Two Unrelated things:
1) Where are good communities to post BtVS and AtS fic? I've written two now and I have no idea where to post them. They took a lot of work to write so I'd like someone to see them, other than just the person whom I wrote them for.
2) Would anyone be willing to beta my hp reversathon fic? I'd give it to you tommorrow and want it back by monday if possible (wednesday if not).
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