For some reason "reviewing" (even though I recognize the point here is not a review but a reflection on plays from a playwriting perspective) is always like pulling teeth for me. So apologies for that. Indeed I saw many more than three plays this semester, but I have yet to write on any of them, so here for what its worth are three capsule reviews.
Anything Goes
Alright, confession: I love this play. The music and lyrics are great sure, but I especially love the book. The actual plot and action of the play are farcical to the point of nihilism. The constant coupling and uncoupling that occurs suggests the meaninglessness of all the characters relationships, the leading male's adoption of the persona of Snake Eyes Johnson that results in totally unintended consequences. The overall effect of this farce I think, is to turn any sort of moral system on its ear. So indeed, Anything Goes. Which is quite awesome really, especially since it is done in the context of sunny and smiling musical theater. Which unfortunately means I think that what I see as the point of the play gets lost on most people (Which is probably a good sign that I am wrong in my interpretation). However, I would still like to write a farce that does exactly what it seems to me that Anything Goes does.
As far as UPS's transcription of the play goes, there is little to note. The actress playing Reno Sweeney had a lovely voice but was unfortunately almost inaudible when competing with the chorus line. But this seems to be unavoidable in amateur musical theater, and I knew the lyrics anyway so there was sort of a weird gap between what was going on in my head and what I was actually perceiving. As a playwright I suppose the only way to play with this idea is through adaptation. (Which gives me an idea: a play about Abraham wherein he really does kill Isaac. Could be interesting and dramatic onstage, could blatantly mime and depart from both the Bible and Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, would produce that same effect of the things onstage blatantly departing from where the audience's mind is going).
Also, in the staff production at UPS, unlike every other production of Anything Goes I have seen, the ship is not actually represented onstage. Which really didn't seem to detract from the play in any way for me. They have lines talking about how they're on a boat, why bother with an actual boat on stage that doesn't move or play an important part in the action in any way. While this production or directorial decision doesn't seem to subtract anything from the play, it doesn't seem to add anything either, it becomes more of a celebration of the work of the original creative team rather than an important work from the director or cast. Which I guess from a playwriting perspective it's cool to know that rather pure productions are possible, but also it seems like the collaborative aspect of theater is downplayed, which is kind of a bummer. Partially what has me attached to playwriting at the moment is that each play can be an experiment to see just what the director and actors make of your words. Of course other media is open to interpretation: take for instance the novel. But in the novel it's difficult to *see* how a reader is interpreting the work, whereas with a play, as a playwright one literally gets to see in a very physical way how the words are interpreted.
Terra Nova
I've never seen or read this play before its production for the senior theater festival, but I was very pleased both with the play itself and its transcription.
I'm not sure how the play was originally produced, but it worked beautifully in the round. As a play in the round, the tension of the justified vs. the unjustifiable in the expedition is emphasized wonderfully. In the initial monologue Scott is literally pacing around, pitching his expedition to the audience. Then for the course of the play we as the audience are seemingly implicit in this crazy journey, we have supported it somehow, his physical intimacy unavoidable. The question on our minds is, was this trip justifiable? Also effective is that as a play in the round, we the audience were literally perched on a map of Antarctica, we are connected to the action in a way that I don't think I would have been had I been sitting in the house.
These notes however are all for this particular production, which was excellent. Ted Tally's actual staging directions call for an almost black box stage but with gritty realism in the camping stove and costuming. He also calls for an abstraction of a tent, not a real one. I'm having trouble fathoming exactly why he would call for realism in the costuming and some props, but abstraction in all else. All I know is that it worked. From my perspective the realism of the costume and stove were somehow just enough historical details for me to ponder the actual technology and hardships of the 1911 Antarctic expedition, while maintaining enough abstraction in order to get my imagination to represent the unstageable Antarctic. Brilliant.
Fences
To start with, it's worth noting that I enjoyed reading this play more than I enjoyed watching it. I'm not sure whose fault this is. August Wilson's? Seattle Rep's? Mine?
Onstage many actions suddenly became bizarre. Hitting the ball attached to the tree was farcical, and seemingly pointless. Were I to see that in real life I would lose a good deal of respect for the rationale of whoever was swinging the bat. And maybe that is August Wilson's point. However, the rest of the play was full of bizarre physicality issues. Because many of the speeches in the play are so long, whenever there was physical contact between people onstage it generally followed the formula of 1) Long line 2) Pensive Contact 3) separation 4) more long dialogue. Again, this might be the fault of the play, or the actors of Seattle Rep, or maybe just my own hang-ups about what counts as "natural" action. Not that I by any means require natural action onstage, just that it took me out of the action a bit. Though perhaps this was infact an aesthetic decision to in someway highlight the disconnect between this band of people due to their situation in life. Which now that I think about it might be kind of brilliant.
