4/13/06 Blackfriar's Return to the Forbidden Planet
PLAY: Return to the Forbidden Planet (mid-80’s Star Trek spoof (from B-movie) with Shakespeare text and 50’s & 60’s rock n’ roll worked in.
DAY/DATE/CURTAIN: Thursday, 4/13/06, 7:30 curtain (7:15 pre-show)
COMPANY: American Shakespeare Center (Shenandoah Shakes.)
DIRECTOR: Jim Warren
VENUE: Blackfriars Playhouse, Staunton, VA
HOUSE SIZE & TYPE: (see earler description) re-created Jacobean indoor playhouse; benches (front) pretty full; lower galleries half-full; stools on stage all occupied; galleries above probably empty; seemed to be a very large school group (high school).
NOTABLE ELEMENTS:
VISUAL: no sets beyond small black boxes stacked to create Captain’s chair, crew’s stations, laptops, etc. Assorted musical instruments.
PERFORMER/SPECTATOR RELATIONSHIP: very intimate; actors almost surrounded by audience; lots of interaction with audience members, including siting in laps, crossing to address aud. member, moving into benches and lower galleries, at one point climbing over wall separating gallery from stage to get at audience.
ACOUSTIC: lots of 50’s & 60’s rock n’ roll (revue-style, with songs justified by plot), sung and acted broadly and very entertainingly, entire cast (12?) playing different musical instruments. No amplification--all instruments acoustic.
TEMPORAL: performance moved at very brisk tempo building to spectacular end of 1st act. However, 2nd act seemed to drag quite a bit to me in comparison, with a very drawn-out ending and a climax that didn’t, quite. At least not for me. But the high-energy sense of fun was maintained throughout.
TEXTUAL: Generally based around plot of The Tempest (like the movie, I guess), but the text involved lines from lots of Shakespeare plays, with comic insertions & references. You didn’t need to recognize the lines to enjoy the play (and modern non-Shakespeare lines were there) but the more I recognized the more I enjoyed the cleverness of the writing.
OTHER: The pre-show was o.k. but not the company at it’s cleverest or funniest. The three characters who had the least business opened the show with the usual announcements done by an alien whose translator chip broke down--the other two translated her gibberish.
ACTING: Generally strong (in the presentational, show-biz-y style required). Very broad and comic. Sometimes seemed to be extremely effortful, but the sense of fun and silliness was so strong that I forgave a lot. All seemed to have a lot of confidence in what they were doing--in control of the style (pretty easy in this case). Really nice to see what seemed to be an older (40s?) actor playing Prospero character.
STAGING: Almost all the actors stayed on stage almost all the time, so the stage was full. It worked well; mainly stayed on the stage but used the theatre, too (see above). Staging of songs, in particular, was almost always clever and effective.
COSTUME: Star Trek-like uniforms throughout, except for Prospero (in standard long robe), Miranda (dressed as young girl trying at times to be sexy), and Ariel: silver all over, including makeup--because he was a robot--on roller skates with kind of a helmet but very expressive face showing.
OTHER GENERAL REACTIONS: Well, I guess I should have hated it but I loved it (especially when I thought they had created it themselves (forgetting that it was a Broadway play (British import?) fromthe 80’s. It was such a standard formula, in a way: the golden oldies review held together by a plot. But the writing was clever, the spoofing really fun, the singing good, the show tight (1st act, especially), and the audience so obviously enjoying themselves that it was just great. And the interplay with the audience was in the best SSE style (unlike the plays I’d seen there earlier in the spring). I’m still a little skeptical about the decision by the company (or Jim and Ralph) to do a Broadway-style show, but the show allowed them to show off their performance style and conventions in a different way, and it was Shakespeare-related (in a comic sense). I just hope they resist doing “Complete Works” (thought maybe they did it in earlier years).
DAY/DATE/CURTAIN: Thursday, 4/13/06, 7:30 curtain (7:15 pre-show)
COMPANY: American Shakespeare Center (Shenandoah Shakes.)
DIRECTOR: Jim Warren
VENUE: Blackfriars Playhouse, Staunton, VA
HOUSE SIZE & TYPE: (see earler description) re-created Jacobean indoor playhouse; benches (front) pretty full; lower galleries half-full; stools on stage all occupied; galleries above probably empty; seemed to be a very large school group (high school).
NOTABLE ELEMENTS:
VISUAL: no sets beyond small black boxes stacked to create Captain’s chair, crew’s stations, laptops, etc. Assorted musical instruments.
PERFORMER/SPECTATOR RELATIONSHIP: very intimate; actors almost surrounded by audience; lots of interaction with audience members, including siting in laps, crossing to address aud. member, moving into benches and lower galleries, at one point climbing over wall separating gallery from stage to get at audience.
ACOUSTIC: lots of 50’s & 60’s rock n’ roll (revue-style, with songs justified by plot), sung and acted broadly and very entertainingly, entire cast (12?) playing different musical instruments. No amplification--all instruments acoustic.
TEMPORAL: performance moved at very brisk tempo building to spectacular end of 1st act. However, 2nd act seemed to drag quite a bit to me in comparison, with a very drawn-out ending and a climax that didn’t, quite. At least not for me. But the high-energy sense of fun was maintained throughout.
TEXTUAL: Generally based around plot of The Tempest (like the movie, I guess), but the text involved lines from lots of Shakespeare plays, with comic insertions & references. You didn’t need to recognize the lines to enjoy the play (and modern non-Shakespeare lines were there) but the more I recognized the more I enjoyed the cleverness of the writing.
OTHER: The pre-show was o.k. but not the company at it’s cleverest or funniest. The three characters who had the least business opened the show with the usual announcements done by an alien whose translator chip broke down--the other two translated her gibberish.
ACTING: Generally strong (in the presentational, show-biz-y style required). Very broad and comic. Sometimes seemed to be extremely effortful, but the sense of fun and silliness was so strong that I forgave a lot. All seemed to have a lot of confidence in what they were doing--in control of the style (pretty easy in this case). Really nice to see what seemed to be an older (40s?) actor playing Prospero character.
STAGING: Almost all the actors stayed on stage almost all the time, so the stage was full. It worked well; mainly stayed on the stage but used the theatre, too (see above). Staging of songs, in particular, was almost always clever and effective.
COSTUME: Star Trek-like uniforms throughout, except for Prospero (in standard long robe), Miranda (dressed as young girl trying at times to be sexy), and Ariel: silver all over, including makeup--because he was a robot--on roller skates with kind of a helmet but very expressive face showing.
OTHER GENERAL REACTIONS: Well, I guess I should have hated it but I loved it (especially when I thought they had created it themselves (forgetting that it was a Broadway play (British import?) fromthe 80’s. It was such a standard formula, in a way: the golden oldies review held together by a plot. But the writing was clever, the spoofing really fun, the singing good, the show tight (1st act, especially), and the audience so obviously enjoying themselves that it was just great. And the interplay with the audience was in the best SSE style (unlike the plays I’d seen there earlier in the spring). I’m still a little skeptical about the decision by the company (or Jim and Ralph) to do a Broadway-style show, but the show allowed them to show off their performance style and conventions in a different way, and it was Shakespeare-related (in a comic sense). I just hope they resist doing “Complete Works” (thought maybe they did it in earlier years).
posted by Graham at 8:38 PM
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