December 17, 2008
Splayed Verbiage (or, Big Words Of Unknown Meaning)
30 Actors. 12 Directors. 12 Plays. 2 1/2 hours of pure fun.
A 10-minute play festival by The Side Project, Splayed Verbiage blew my mind. It was everything I’d wanted out of a theatre since my first year as a drama student. Every ten minutes the stage was cleared and new scenes were built, new worlds explored, new lives examined. Each director involved used their precious few minutes to capture the imaginations of the audience and draw us into their world.
The stories ranged from a couple who cycle from birth to death, each day forgetting the last, to awkward conversations at the Belmont El stop, to a woman reminiscing about wanting to be a slave as a child. Scenes of hurt and anger, love and sadness.
I’ll freely admit that I had a wonderful time, probably one of the best times as a theatregoer that I’ve had in a long time. I’m not much of a theatre-watcher. I prefer to operate behind the scenes or on stage rather than by sitting in the audience, but Splayed Verbiage was an exquisite glimpse into what I feel theatre should be all about.
I’d tried to set up some 10-minute play festivals back in college, and I met a wall of hard resistance. Not sure what the big deal was, but nobody else wanted to do it. That’s one reason why I’m very impressed and excited about The Side Project’s festivals.
If you have a few bucks and two hours on Sunday, go check it out. You won’t regret it.
The Side Project (website)
June 28, 2008
Wall-E teaches Storytelling
I remember the first time I felt regret at growing older. You spend the first decade of life wanting to grow up, grow up, grow up, yet at some point that desire turns upon itself and you would trade anything to be younger. I remember the first time I felt that way. It was 7th grade and just starting Jr. High. I looked at my schedule: English, Math, Social Studies, Science, P.E., lunch, study hall, and an elective. One glaring omission: Recess.
Shit. I miss elementary school already.
Ever since then, I’ve looked back on my early years with happiness, remembering the times when my friends and I would ride our bike to the comic store, play Snake-in-the-Gutter, have snowball fights, play video games, go swimming, build forts and wait on the front porch for the Ice Cream Man to drive by. Sometimes, I wish I were a kid again.
Every once in a great while, however, I will find myself in such a state of happiness and feeling carefree, invincible, as if there were nothing wrong in the world. I can forget about job hunting, relationships, paying bills, and keeping up appearances. Every once in awhile, those memories become real — in my mind, I AM a kid again.
Last night, I went to see Wall-E with my brother and his fiancee. It was the most delightful, charming movie I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t action-packed or even super funny, but it was so cute and full of joy that I couldn’t help but giggle every time Wall-E did anything. Last night, I was a kid again.
The story follows a little robot, Wall-E, whose sole job is to pick up trash and compact it into little squares and pile up the squares. There are no humans around and all of the other robots that Wall-E passes are broken and immobile. Occasionally, he scavenges parts and finds little trinkets that amuse him, but most of all, he looks to the sky and wonders what’s out there. One day, he finds out.
For the first half of the movie there is virtually no talking, other than Wall-E and Eve (a visiting robot). And even then, all they say is “Wallllll-eeeeeeee!” and “Eeeeeeeeeeve!” Yet you get every emotion Wall-E has (yes, robots have emotions here.. it’s a Pixar movie, get over it!). You feel bad for Wall-E when things go wrong, happiness when they go right, fear when he’s in trouble, elation when he makes it through.
And over and over again, you think “Awwww”.
The artists and animators at Pixar have, in the past decade, become master storytellers. Each story up until now contained vast amounts of dialogue, but Wall-E shows their skill at telling a story without the use of too many words. Each word is carefully added and considered, and any word that is uttered brings that much more poignancy and emotion to the scene. Even saying “Wall-E” and “Eve” in various ways conveys emotions and meaning that one would be hard pressed to see in real life.
For you actors, directors, producers, playwrights, designers, take a lesson from Wall-E and Pixar. Try and tell the same story with fewer words. You’d be surprised at the result.
Do your inner child a favor. Take your family and go see Wall-E today — and feel free to giggle hysterically. It’s okay.
Really.
April 28, 2008
RENT
I saw RENT at The Fox in Atlanta last night. It was sorta-kinda-maybe-not what I expected. I was expecting a little more pizzazz, a little less cheese, and a lot stronger vocals.
Plot. Most of you know the plot, but for those who don’t, I’ll rehash it real quick: Mark is the narrator and he is filming a documentary. Roger’s ex killed herself when she and Roger got AIDS, and now Roger’s afraid to leave his apartment. Benny married the daughter of the owner of the building and tries to blackmail his former roommates Mark and Roger into stopping Maureen’s protest. Maureen is a rights activist/protestor who used to date Mark, but she dumped him for a lawyer named Joanne. Joanne is an uptight, jealous, protective woman who loves Maureen. Collins is a computer anarchist who meets Angel, a transvestite, and they fall in love. Both Collins and Angel have AIDS. Meanwhile, Roger meets a stripper/heroine addict named Mimi and they fall in love. At some point, Angel dies, the group of friends drift apart. It’s a good story based on Puccini’s opera La Boheme.
Lights. The lights, to be blunt, were crap. The show was completely back-lit and side-lit, with no front lights. Basically, that meant that when an actor faced downstage, half of him was in the shadow and the other half was in the light. Actors who face the wrong direction are completely hidden in shadow. On top of that, there were no light cues or anything that identified who was singing at any given moment, which can be a problem when you’ve got 20 people on stage and only one person is singing a solo line, but they’re all moving around and dancing. Who’s singing? Who knows?! There were also two points in the show where a large spotlight was shone straight out into the audience, nearly blinding us. The second of these was when Maureen came out onto the stage. I couldn’t see anything for the first half of “Over the Moon” because I had been blinded.
Acting. The acting was fine. RENT is largely a musical for singers, as opposed to a musical for actors. In fact, this is highly apparent when you look at the playbill for the show. Half the cast were American Idol contestants. The guy who played Roger was the South African Idol winner a couple of years ago. None of them were particularly good dancers or actors, but they weren’t particularly bad either. The three actors that stuck out the most to me as GOOD actors were the girl who played Maureen (her first gig out of college!), the guy who played Mark (also a recent grad, if I recall correctly), and Benny. I really believed they were Mark, Maureen and Benny. The rest of them could’ve been anyone.
Vocals. Because the cast was largely comprised of singers from American Idol, the vocals were pretty good. The first half of the show had problems where I couldn’t understand or hear half of what they were saying, but when it cleared up in th second act, I concluded that it was the venue’s sound system that had FUBAR’d. The guy who played Roger never actually hit his opening notes, he’d sing up to them, which was slightly annoying. The rest of the cast did a fine job.
Costumes. The costumes were pretty good with the exception of Collins and Joanne. I didn’t buy for a minute that either one of them were who they were supposed to be. Collins looked like a gangster from the street, not a computer-literate hacker (no offense to any gangster-hackers out there). Joanne looked like Queen Latifah from Barbershop, not a rich lawyer. Other than that, good stuff. Mark and Maureen especially looked good, and Angel’s costumes were typical tranvestite stuff. Good deal.
Music. The music was the strongest part of the show. Jonathan Larson, the composer and writer of RENT, did a fantastic job with the music. The band was pretty good and unobtrusive, given that they were actually on stage with the actors.
Now I’m going to address some directing decisions that I didn’t like, that I feel could’ve been done better.
Directing. First of all, the casting of a few characters was off. Collins and Joanne didn’t look or act like who they were supposed to be. There was an ensemble guy who stood out like nobody’s business. Ensemble cast members aren’t supposed to stick out — they blend in as extras and swing parts. Every time this one guy came out, I’d think “That’s Gordon”. None of the other ensemble stuck out in that way to me.
Second, the choreography was decent across the board, but there were some stylized things that I didn’t like. Collins and Roger especially did some weird crazy hand waving gestures that were supposed to emphasize what they were saying, but really came across as cheesy attempts to explain stuff that should already be obvious. In addition, there were two songs in particular where the choreography just didn’t work. In “What You Own”, Roger and Mark are in two separate places: Santa Fe and New York, respectively. However, on stage, it seemed as if they were in the same room. They kept walking past each other, yet not acknowledging each other. The ignoring each other might work if it were obvious that they weren’t looking at each other, but it really truly looked like they were staring at each other the whole time. If I were to do it differently, I would have put Roger up on the balcony in the back and kept Mark in the studio apartment, and at the end of the song, have them come back together.
On that some line of thought, there were several moments in the play where certain actors were in their own little worlds having conversations that nobody else should see. For example, in “I Should Tell You”, Roger and Mimi have a special moment where they both realize the other has AIDS and that there’s nothing to be afraid of. This song should take place in a more private place, like outside or in a hallway or something. Instead, it takes place down-center in front of the table that was being used for La Vie Boheme. The rest of the cast is cooped up on one side of the table, and they’re all staring at Roger and Mimi. I don’t think the rest of the cast should have been there at all. There are ways of keeping them close by for the next number without having them staring into what is obviously an intimate and private moment. Face them upstage, freeze them in the last known position, move them just offstage, whatever — just get them out of our faces.
In the opening number “RENT”, there’s the line where Collins says,
“Welcome back to town,
Oh I should lie down,
Everything’s turning brown, and
Oh, I feel sick!”
Roger and Mark are down-center, and they’re looking straight at Collins who is stage-left on the ground bleeding. Then as soon as Collins says “I feel sick” the lights drop on him, Roger and Mark face the audience and say:
“Where is he?”
C’mon. They don’t know where he is! Why were they just looking at him?
When you want to establish that characters are in different places, you have to have them a) in a physically different spot, b) in different lighting conditions and c) NOT LOOKING AT THE OTHER CHARACTERS THAT AREN’T THERE! Talk about breaking my suspension of disbelief.
Finally, the biggest problem seemed to be lack of chemistry. I didn’t really think that any of those characters seemed to care for any of the others except for Maureen and Joanne. Even Collins felt kind of disconnected from everything. Maybe they were just tired, I don’t know.
There were a handful of other complaints that I have, but I can’t remember them at the moment, as my stomach is growling. I’ll conclude this by saying that I’m rather disappointed in this Equity tour. I skipped the last tour that came through because it was a non-Equity performance from a company that had gotten pretty consistently bad reviews over the past few years. I didn’t want my first viewing of RENT (live) be a bad one. Guess I messed up on that one.
April 8, 2008
In which Scott lays the Smackdown on McPsycho
In response to my previous post, Good Things Come To Those Who Wait, Scott Walters provides commentary on the state of theatre education at the college level. I especially like the following quote:
“In fact, it is abuse, and deserves to be called what it is: bullshit. There is absolutely no value in making your “homework assignment” so obscure that the students don’t even know it is an assignment. In addition, this teacher better have had a damn good reason to have asked students to learn how to “wait,” because if that was the sole purpose of the “exercise” it is empty nonsense, which is what all too much acting “training” amounts to.” — Scott Walters
Exactly. Thank you! It’s complete, utter bullshit. For everyone who agrees with Scott and myself, I encourage you to check out Scott’s blog, Theatre Ideas, and join the discussion on how the theatre blogosphere believes change is coming. Subscribe to it, bookmark it - I don’t care. Just read it!
February 4, 2008
An Introduction to Les Miserables
Last night, I saw what was possibly the best show I’ve ever seen in my life. The Virginia Samford Theatre hosted a production of Les Miserables presented by the Shades Valley Theatre Academy. For those who don’t know, Shades Valley is a local high school. However, this school edition of the hit musical wasn’t solely Shades Valley High students but consisted of students from all over the state. I mean, these kids were top-notch. I couldn’t believe they were only high schoolers. So, here comes my review!
Plot. There’s not much to say here — it’s your traditional Les Miserables plot. Still a great show, though. My father, my step-mother and I got into a discussion at dinner before the show. Now, I’d never actually seen Les Miserables before last night, so I was looking forward to it. I’d only heard the music up until this point. My father said “I don’t really care about the plot and the story, I care about the music.” My step-mother was aghast, “but, honey! The story’s the best part!” I decided to reserve judgment. Incidentally, my stepmother cried half the time during the show, she was so moved, and my father just tapped his foot to the beat.
Music. After having that conversation and watching the entire show, I decided that both of them were correct. It all comes down to whether you consider Les Miserables to be a musical or an opera. In my mind, an opera is all about the music — it’s basically a musical score that just happens to have a plot. A musical, on the other hand, is a play that happens to have music. It all depends on whether you like the music or the plot better, I think. I loved both aspects. The kids’ voices were incredible. The kid who played Enjolras had the best voice, by far, but the others were incredibly strong as well. The guy who played Jean Valjean did a lot of sing-speaking, but I’m not sure if that was written into the score or if that was a function of his voice capabilities. I’m inclined to believe the former, since he got standing O’s for a couple of his solo songs.
Choreography. The choreography was phenomenal. There wasn’t anything terribly difficult, but I was kept entertained throughout. The only lulls were when the soloists came forward to sing songs. The scrims would drop and it would be the actor downstage in a special singing alone, with very little movement. I thought that was rather boring. As I listened, I pictured them doing other things besides standing still and belting out the music. Other than that, there wasn’t a dull moment. The Threnadier’s were amazing, with some pretty complicated movements, and the students and revolutionaries had some pretty amazing stuff, too.
I was most impressed with the kids in the play. I mentioned that they were high schoolers, but that wasn’t entirely accurate. The show consisted primarily of upperclassmen, but there were a handful of middle-school and elementary-school children in the show as well. Little Eponine sang an adorably cute solo, and Little Cosette was cute as a button.
Another thing that impressed me was how each of the Ensemble members had a prominent position in the show. They each had solo parts, they each took centerstage at some point, and yet when their time was done, they seamlessly blended into the background chorus. Just great choreography and direction in this show.
Set. I’m going to admit that I spent a good part of the show trying to figure out how much the set cost. The set was incredibly done, with detail far beyond what I’ve seen in the few theatres that I’ve been in. They flew in a bridge and whole set pieces from the fly space. Honestly, I was shocked when kids walked across this bridge suspended in air, but apparently the techs knew what they were doing — nobody fell. The set was designed in separate modules that, when pulled together in different configurations, completely changed the way the set looked. I’ve never been backstage of the VST, but I was constantly shocked at how much set there was. Each scene was a completely new experience. I took my camera along, hoping to get pictures after the show, but they dropped the main drape and denied my request to take pictures. Oh well.
The only problem I had was that I could see into the wings the entire time. I kept wondering when the legs would fly in to conceal the wings, but it never happened. I could see actors backstage waiting for their entrances, whispering to each other, etc. I tried to ignore them, but when they’re wearing these fancy costumes, it’s hard to ignore.
Costumes. I was very, very impressed by the costumes as far as quality is concerned. However, looking at production photos from other performances in other theatres, I’ve realized that they didn’t do anything new with the costumes. They essentially took the Broadway version and copied their costumes. I was very impressed with them, though. Nothing looked fake or cheap.
Acting. These kids were phenomenal. They never broke character that I could tell, and they were very very convincing, especially in the parts where I’ve always found it hardest to stay in character. You know those parts, the ones where you’re in the background and supposed to be having a conversation with someone else while the leads are downstage singing solos. I’ve always found it difficult to make it realistic, and every show I’ve ever seen where that kind of stuff happens has been a disappointment. Not this time. This Les Miz cast completely blew me away. Everything was perfectly cast, and everyone fit into their roles like a glove. I honestly can’t believe these were all high schoolers.
Overall. I’ve always said that I can’t get into a soundtrack until I’ve seen a performance of a show. I’d listened to the Les Miserables soundtrack a handful of times, and I never could get into it. I put it on my iPod on the way home, and I’ve been listening to it non-stop. The story just came alive in front of my eyes, and now when I hear the songs, I can see vividly what happens.
I’ve seen four productions on Broadway, and I have to say that this production was right up there with them. I suspect part of the reason I’m so impressed is that I went in there expecting a high school production, and I got a Broadway production. Next time Shades Valley Theatre Academy puts on a production, I’m there. Great job, guys.
December 23, 2007
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
First, let me say that I’ve been looking forward to this film for quite some time. Sweeney Todd is one of my favorite Broadway musicals, and the fact that Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Stephen Sondheim were bringing it to the big screen just made it even better. Now, on to the review:
(WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! If you haven’t seen the movie, you might not want to read any further!)
Music. The music in the movie was awesome. Not just my favorite numbers like “My Friends”, “Poor Thing” and “The Contest” and such, but even the ballads as sung by Mrs. Lovett (which weren’t ever really my favorites) were done exceptionally well. I even found myself tapping my foot along with the music the entire time, which definitely means it was catchy. If it weren’t, I would’ve been asleep. I’m sort of surprised at Johnny Depp’s singing ability, and I’m surprised that I’m surprised, considering he was in Cry Baby (although I recently found out his voice was dubbed for those rockabilly songs!). His voice was surprisingly strong and solid. I give the music a 10/10.
Acting. The acting, too, was completely solid. There wasn’t a weak moment in any scene that I could detect. The characters are unspeakably memorable, from Depp’s extraordinary character development to Helena Bonham Carter’s portrayal of Mrs. Lovett as despising of London as Sweeney Todd is to Alan Rickman’s flawless portrayal of Judge Turpin, whose turpitude created Sweeney Todd’s demon spirit from the ashes of the nice barber Benjamin Barker. Even the kid, Toby, had a flawless performance. I truly bought that Sweeney Todd wanted revenge, that Mrs. Lovett was in love with Todd, that the old hag was crazy, that Anthony loved Johanna (in a slightly creepy, stalkerish way), that Judge Turpin (the old perv) wanted to bang the daylights out of Johanna, that Toby was scared of Todd, that… well, you get the point.
Cinematography. Awesome. Simply awesome. Burton’s vision of Sweeney Todd is reminiscent of his Sleepy Hollow, but instead of faux-comic horror, this time it’s real. The streets of London aren’t dark to scare you, they’re dark because the denizens of London are evil bastards with true criminal hearts. There’s not a single good person in London, except perhaps Johanna. Everyone is self-serving, deprecating, and twisted in their own ways. The cinematography reflects that, with harsh lights, shadows, dark scenery, rotted sets, and horrid people.
I found several instances where lighting changed where it shouldn’t have. For example, when Mrs. Lovett is telling Sweeney Todd about how his wife took poison, they show the scene from two different angles — looking at Mrs. Lovett and looking at Sweeney Todd. When you look at Mrs. Lovett, you can see Todd off to the side. The right side of his face is dark. When they cut back to Todd, the lighting has changed — the right side of his face is now bright, while his left side is dark. There were at least a dozen other instances similar to this.
Doing a movie with such dramatic lighting will inevitably cause this kind of thing, so I’m not terribly upset about it. It’s just that usually I don’t notice those kinds of things, so for me to notice, that’s not a good sign. Other than that, no other issues with cinematography or lighting or anything like that. Amazing work, really.
Directing. Okay, up until now it’s been mostly roses and happiness. Now I’ve got a serious nitpick with Burton. He has this annoying habit of stopping the action when the actors sing. For instance, when Anthony sees Johanna singing in the window, he should have been trying to get her attention, running down the street to get flowers, and trying to show that he’d been struck by Cupid’s arrow. Instead, he stands there and stares at her.
When Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd sing “Like A Priest”, they stare out the window. There is no interplay between them, there is nothing interesting — they simply stare out the window and sing. They should be having fun — they’re devising the means of their revenge against the blasted denizens of London! Mrs. Lovett should be flirting with Todd, he should be ecstatic that he now has a way to get back at the bastard Judge Turpin. Instead, they stare out a window. How drab.
When the kid, Toby, sings to Mrs. Lovett about how he’s not going to let anything happen to her, he’s just sitting there singing to her, and she’s singing back. Let’s have some action, folks! I’ve heard the soundtracks before. I know the songs. I don’t need to sit there and watch a person sing. I can imagine that well enough on my own. Bring on some action, bring me something new to happen!
This was a huge fuckup on Burton’s part, as far as I’m concerned. If they can fill these songs with action on Broadway, then they can certainly do even better on screen. The budget, at $50 million, is many times that of the Broadway version (less than $10 million), so they could definitely have improved upon it.
Overall. At any rate, I’d have to say that Sweeney Todd is one of my new favorite films. As I mentioned before, I love the story, I love the actors, I love the songs, and I love movies. Put them together and what have you got? Bibbity-bobbity-Sweeney-fucking-Todd.
I love it.
Final Rating: 9/10
Here is another review of Sweeney Todd that I read. Excellent points, all.
What did you think of the movie?
Do you agree with my review?
Did you agree with it at all
Or should I agree with you?
Why or why not? Let me know!
Click on the Comment link below!
(What do you know… I’m a poet and I didn’t realize it!)
December 21, 2007
I Am Legend (review)
If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
“I am impressed,” I said to my girlfriend, as we exited the theatre. “I am very impressed with ‘I Am Legend’.” Ironic, eh?
The story starts out simply enough: a doctor has developed a virus that will work to benefit humans (rather than hurt us) and actually cures cancer. Fast forward three years and we see Dr. Robert Neville (played by Will Smith) driving through the empty streets of New York City with his dog. It is very clear that New York City has been empty and abandoned for years and Nature is taking over. Very shortly we discover that Neville is immune to the virus and has been the lone survivor in Gotham for three years. We also discover that 90% of the world died due to the virus spiraling out of control, 8% of the world turned into what were called Dark Seekers (some sort of zombie), and less than 1% of the world population is immune.
Neville captures Dark Seekers to experiment with a cure. We witness him capture a Dark Seeker female, and the alpha male gets pissed off. Apparently, the female was his girlfriend. This particular Dark Seeker becomes the main antagonist for the rest of the movie.
The plot was pretty solid, with no major goofs that I could detect. The visuals were absolutely stunning. There was nothing left untouched, nothing left unfinished. New York City was mind-bogglingly empty. When I normally think of New York City, I think of people walking constantly, streets jammed packed with cabs, and a cowboy walking around in his underwear. Okay, I normally don’t think about the cowboy. But my point stands — NYC is non-stop movement. To see NYC completely empty shook me to the core of my being — this is it: the end of the human race. The special effects were pretty damn good, too. It was extremely difficult to tell what was CGI and what was real (with the exception of the Dark Seekers — CGI is getting good these days, but for some reason they still have trouble with humanoid figures).
The best part though was Will Smith’s performance of Robert Neville. Smith completely carried the entire movie from the first scene all the way to the end. His acting was impeccable. I truly believed he was the last man on Earth. I read that he talked to convicts who spent long periods of time in solitary confinement, P.O.W.’s, and hermits in order to identify what it is that people who spend that kind of time alone do. He mastered those details perfectly. He essentially created a routine and other people to react off, even though they were all in his head.
Simply an amazing movie. I give it a 9.5 out of 10. Go see it today — you won’t regret it!