The smell of the crowd

[cyrano]

Servant of Two Masters
The show is based in Commedia dell'arte, but with a combination of structured and improv bits. I wasn't always certain which was which. They also did the prerequisite drawing material from current events, including referencing every other play currently running. (Budget restrictions meant they had to steal weapons for a duel from other theaters, including a lethal trombone from the Music Man.) Truffaldino, the ever hungry servant, has a bit where he walks into the audience to ask advice, and was upstaged by an audience member twice. (He held a grudge through the entire performance.) The show was fast moving, as befits the style, and I enjoyed it a lot. It was light fare, but you don't want everything to be MacBeth.

We saw One Night Band, a sort of pick up group of players and former players who, in their copious free time, rehearsed various covers. They were having a great time, and it was infectious.

Don Quixote
Not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. It felt disjointed, but perhaps that's to be expected of a play within a book within a book. There was some very impressive puppetry and pantomime (like pantomime horse), including the rarely present antagonist, The Shadow, who was a giant head with glowing red eyes and two gigantic hands each man handled by their own stage hand. I expect he was ominous and scary, but I couldn't understand a word he said. sadface.
But I did laugh sometimes, and I don't regret going.

Comments

[amanda_lodden.livejournal.com]

I found Don Quixote to be a little overly-arty. There were a few points (like when the people dressed entirely in red surrounded Quixote in one of the early scenes-- I've got no clue who/what they were supposed to be, nor what they were supposed to be doing) that I felt like I might have stumbled into "The Earth Light Players present Don Quixote".

I might have been more favorably inclined towards that sort of thing if it were in a different theater. As it was, every "what was that supposed to be?" moment of the play was just another moment of sitting in a too-hard chair.