Hi everyone-
I am in the computer lab typing up some notes for my research so I thought this would be a good time to write a new post. I have seen two shows so far both have been pretty amazing. We saw the Arab Israeli Cookbook on Thursday night. This was an amazing play that was a collection of monologues and short scenes surrounding the conflects in Israel. There were some really poignant scenes relating to some of the current events witht the bombings. The show was running prior to what has happened and so I can't even imagine how it felt to be the actors and all of sudden have these stories about bombings, the fear of an abandoned backpack, not letting the terrorists disturb regular routine bring a whole new layer of meaning to the piece. I bought the script because it was excellent and because I think I am going to use some of the monologues as a way in for my actors on the piece I am directing. I think it will just give them more material to get their minds around and help me to get my mind around it as well.
Death of a Salesman was the other show we saw. Visually this piece was absolutely stunning. I have never seen anything like it in terms of design and stage pictures. I realized once the play started that I was more familiar with All my Sons than Death of a Salesman. One of the challenges of this piece is to be able to show multiple rooms of the house as well as multiple settings outside the house. One way they did that in this piece was to use a turntable, have the different levels shift, and really make us of scrims (a cloth that when backlit is transculent but when lit from a different angle is opaque). The shifting of scenery made the piece almost cinematic, the use of the turntable almost made it like we as an audience were zooming in on a scene. I didn't find the acting/directing in this as strong which I think puts me in a minority. Mrs. Loman was outstanding- she was a small, fierce, bulldog, emotional powerhouse. The other actors grew on me in the second act but the first act was just really slow on tempo. Rob Lowe was also in the audience much to the delight of many from our program. I am a terrible star spotter so left to my own devices I would not have noticed. For any of you Rob Lowe fans, he was a very pretty man. I think my favorite part of seeing him was watching Chris watch him from the balcony. He was so excited. It was like watching a little kid at Christmas. :)
As I said at the beginning of the post, I am typing up research this morning. My research has been amazing so far. I got to watch a taped production of Fiona Shaw playing Richard II which was inspring. Deborah Warner is my new directing hero. I also was able to go through the groundplans, costume renderings, cue sheets, and rehearsal/production photos. Next week I am going to go through the press releases and I'll be done at the National. The archivists are really friendly and helpful. One of them even made me tea yesterday and we had a nice little talk about productions that are running now.
Between 4 and midnight today I am seeing three shows- Shoreditch Madonna, Hedda Gabler, and MacBeth. I want to do some exploring today and tomorrow to get a better sense of my surroundings.
Take care everyone.