The roar of the greasepaint
Sep. 17th, 2009 11:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyranoMacBeth
The set is rather spare, and used for the entire show. It's an intriguing mix of grand and disintegrating, a grand staircase falling apart into a treacherous industrial framework. The style is somewhere in the overlap between Tim Burton, M.C. Escher, and Dr. Seuss. It does an excellent job of setting that theme of equivocation and ambivalence.
Our MacBeth (He was Othello last year) is lovely, as expected. He is, in turns (and within moments), lustful and subdued, raging and overwhelmed. Plus, they got his shirt off.
Two minor counts, I thought that the background music was overbearing and bombastic, like a John Williams score, and very distracting. The witches, in the scenes where they were scripted to appear, were laughably over the top. (The scene with the figures crawling out of the cauldron started out as ridiculous because of the witches and also the gigantic heads the spirits were wearing, and took far too long to get creepy.) However, the director had the witches show up on occasion as a sort of Greek chorus (without the chorusing--they mostly just observed). In fact, the closing shot is very effective. Malcolm is giving his coronation speech, glorious in his post battle near kingship, and the lighting is focused on the witches, reverencing Fleance. (Who is, for those of you joining us late, the ancestor of King James.)
Comments from my fellow theatre goer: I like that MacBeth is bi-polar; I've never cared for the idea that the murders alone drove him over the edge. This MacBeth had it in him to begin with, and is much less of his wife's patsy than previous MacBeths.
Taking Woodstock
Warmer and funnier than I expect. Demitri Martin actually *can* be funny. Also, in high school I read a lot about counter culture in the sixties. (I did not in fact Steal This Book. I paid $10 for it.) So there were lots of points where I said "Oh yeah, of course Max and the guy with the chocolate milk are the same guy." or something to that effect.
I was curious how a Chinese film maker would take on Woodstock. I was very pleased.
Henry VIII
Like King John last year, another show that I got tickets to largely because I didn't think I'd see it performed anywhere else.
Pretty much like a condensed version of S1 of The Tudors, but with less Naked Sexy King, less soap opera plotting, and more earnestness. (Mary Boleyn gets roundly ignored again, probably no shock there.) The most memorable bit of the first half is the shot they end with--Henry, Wolsey, Anne, and Katherine arranged in a cross on the stage, each with their own spot.
The most memorable bit of the second half is "remember the first half?"
Most of the second half of the show is a collection of monologues about how earnest each character is, and how put upon they are despite doing the best they can. Wolsey's sin is loving the king too much. Katherine's sin is loving the King too much. Cromwell's sin is loving God too much. You get the picture. The entire thing is a plodding trudge that finally ends in the glorious baptism of Elizabeth, where Henry gives thanks to a most beneficent God for providing him with an heir. And he certainly doesn't mind that the heir doesn't have a winkle.
I think the big problem with this play is that.... okay, two big problems. The first is that there's just not enough going on to sustain two hours and forty-five minutes of my time. The second is that he's writing about the father of a tremendously beloved monarch who was on the throne just a few years ago.
The set is rather spare, and used for the entire show. It's an intriguing mix of grand and disintegrating, a grand staircase falling apart into a treacherous industrial framework. The style is somewhere in the overlap between Tim Burton, M.C. Escher, and Dr. Seuss. It does an excellent job of setting that theme of equivocation and ambivalence.
Our MacBeth (He was Othello last year) is lovely, as expected. He is, in turns (and within moments), lustful and subdued, raging and overwhelmed. Plus, they got his shirt off.
Two minor counts, I thought that the background music was overbearing and bombastic, like a John Williams score, and very distracting. The witches, in the scenes where they were scripted to appear, were laughably over the top. (The scene with the figures crawling out of the cauldron started out as ridiculous because of the witches and also the gigantic heads the spirits were wearing, and took far too long to get creepy.) However, the director had the witches show up on occasion as a sort of Greek chorus (without the chorusing--they mostly just observed). In fact, the closing shot is very effective. Malcolm is giving his coronation speech, glorious in his post battle near kingship, and the lighting is focused on the witches, reverencing Fleance. (Who is, for those of you joining us late, the ancestor of King James.)
Comments from my fellow theatre goer: I like that MacBeth is bi-polar; I've never cared for the idea that the murders alone drove him over the edge. This MacBeth had it in him to begin with, and is much less of his wife's patsy than previous MacBeths.
Taking Woodstock
Warmer and funnier than I expect. Demitri Martin actually *can* be funny. Also, in high school I read a lot about counter culture in the sixties. (I did not in fact Steal This Book. I paid $10 for it.) So there were lots of points where I said "Oh yeah, of course Max and the guy with the chocolate milk are the same guy." or something to that effect.
I was curious how a Chinese film maker would take on Woodstock. I was very pleased.
Henry VIII
Like King John last year, another show that I got tickets to largely because I didn't think I'd see it performed anywhere else.
Pretty much like a condensed version of S1 of The Tudors, but with less Naked Sexy King, less soap opera plotting, and more earnestness. (Mary Boleyn gets roundly ignored again, probably no shock there.) The most memorable bit of the first half is the shot they end with--Henry, Wolsey, Anne, and Katherine arranged in a cross on the stage, each with their own spot.
The most memorable bit of the second half is "remember the first half?"
Most of the second half of the show is a collection of monologues about how earnest each character is, and how put upon they are despite doing the best they can. Wolsey's sin is loving the king too much. Katherine's sin is loving the King too much. Cromwell's sin is loving God too much. You get the picture. The entire thing is a plodding trudge that finally ends in the glorious baptism of Elizabeth, where Henry gives thanks to a most beneficent God for providing him with an heir. And he certainly doesn't mind that the heir doesn't have a winkle.
I think the big problem with this play is that.... okay, two big problems. The first is that there's just not enough going on to sustain two hours and forty-five minutes of my time. The second is that he's writing about the father of a tremendously beloved monarch who was on the throne just a few years ago.