28 April 2009
12 April 2009
A theatrical weekend
Friday: Imagine a really, really bad 1950’s science fiction movie.
No. Imagine a SPECIFIC really, really bad 1950’s science fiction movie: Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space (often called the worst movie ever made).
Now, imagine you’re sitting in a lovely theatre, waiting for a production of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.
OK. Now imagine this: a man in a suit, riding on some sort of rolling cart with a large Chinese gong attached, holding a coffee cup with a light inside of it to his chin so that the light illuminates his features in a scary, Hallowe’en sort of way.
Then imaging that same man in the suit humming a high-pitched Theremin-like wail (the sort you’d hum when commenting on something that is really “out there").
Finally, imagine him repeating, word for word, the monologue from Plan 9 from Outer Space that was given by the 1950’s “seer,” Criswell.
You can see the original here:
(The term, “grave robbers from outer space” was left out for this particular play, since there were no grave robbers from outer space in Shakespeare... that I know of.)
So, the stage is set. There is a little bit of Balinese shadow-puppetry, there is a bit of Keystone Cops-like mad chase (with Boots Randolph’s Yakety Sax playing as the actors ran around in circles), there is a “space doctor” whose nurse (in webbed feet and a beak) shocks people with her touch (she even lays an egg at one point), there is a plea from the Criswell-esque narrator at intermission to go out to the lobby and buy stuff (with the old movie theater organ intermission music playing), there are people with aluminum foil space helmets, AND, yes, there is someone in a gorilla suit to round out the mayhem.
And, oh, by the way, the cast performed Shakespeare’s play with all the dialogue as the Bard himself wrote it.
It was WONDERFUL. I wish they had filmed it. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long, long time. The genius of Shakespeare (who will be 445 years old next week) came through. He wrote a very funny play.
Saturday: A more somber play, Vigils at Alex’s Know Theatre (the other show was by the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company). A widow who has forced her dead husband’s soul to remain with her, locked in a trunk in her room (because she doesn’t want to let go quite yet), goes on her first date. ("Can we talk about this not right in front of your husband's Soul?" he asks early on. "It's weirding me out.")
You can see the trailer here:
It’s a complicated play, too difficult to explain, but I really liked it. The actors actually speak about being in the play, breaking down the barriers between them and the audience. It was about love and loss and moving on, and there were tearful moments and there were some very funny moments, as the husband’s soul converses with the new boyfriend. I’m totally flummoxed by the ending, however. I made a joke afterward that I would have to wait for Arthur Clarke’s novelization to come out so I would know what the hell it was about (like I did after first seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey). Actually, Alex said that the actors were of differing opinions about the meaning of the play’s ending.
No. Imagine a SPECIFIC really, really bad 1950’s science fiction movie: Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space (often called the worst movie ever made).
Now, imagine you’re sitting in a lovely theatre, waiting for a production of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.
OK. Now imagine this: a man in a suit, riding on some sort of rolling cart with a large Chinese gong attached, holding a coffee cup with a light inside of it to his chin so that the light illuminates his features in a scary, Hallowe’en sort of way.
Then imaging that same man in the suit humming a high-pitched Theremin-like wail (the sort you’d hum when commenting on something that is really “out there").
Finally, imagine him repeating, word for word, the monologue from Plan 9 from Outer Space that was given by the 1950’s “seer,” Criswell.
You can see the original here:
(The term, “grave robbers from outer space” was left out for this particular play, since there were no grave robbers from outer space in Shakespeare... that I know of.)
So, the stage is set. There is a little bit of Balinese shadow-puppetry, there is a bit of Keystone Cops-like mad chase (with Boots Randolph’s Yakety Sax playing as the actors ran around in circles), there is a “space doctor” whose nurse (in webbed feet and a beak) shocks people with her touch (she even lays an egg at one point), there is a plea from the Criswell-esque narrator at intermission to go out to the lobby and buy stuff (with the old movie theater organ intermission music playing), there are people with aluminum foil space helmets, AND, yes, there is someone in a gorilla suit to round out the mayhem.
And, oh, by the way, the cast performed Shakespeare’s play with all the dialogue as the Bard himself wrote it.
It was WONDERFUL. I wish they had filmed it. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long, long time. The genius of Shakespeare (who will be 445 years old next week) came through. He wrote a very funny play.
Saturday: A more somber play, Vigils at Alex’s Know Theatre (the other show was by the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company). A widow who has forced her dead husband’s soul to remain with her, locked in a trunk in her room (because she doesn’t want to let go quite yet), goes on her first date. ("Can we talk about this not right in front of your husband's Soul?" he asks early on. "It's weirding me out.")
You can see the trailer here:
It’s a complicated play, too difficult to explain, but I really liked it. The actors actually speak about being in the play, breaking down the barriers between them and the audience. It was about love and loss and moving on, and there were tearful moments and there were some very funny moments, as the husband’s soul converses with the new boyfriend. I’m totally flummoxed by the ending, however. I made a joke afterward that I would have to wait for Arthur Clarke’s novelization to come out so I would know what the hell it was about (like I did after first seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey). Actually, Alex said that the actors were of differing opinions about the meaning of the play’s ending.
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