01/06/04
Mourning Becomes Electra: Well, I finally saw it. The play that totally surprised me because of the length (>4 hours) is over. The mini presentation of the play of >4 hours is done. The presentation… sucked. Everything I wanted to say wasn’t said. Why? I don’t know, maybe I felt rushed since we had only 10 minutes or so because we were going to meet someone at the British Academy of Dramatic Arts (BADA). That someone’s name is Fiona Shaw. You’d know her from the Harry Potter movies where she played Aunt Petunia.
It was a blast to listen to her. She had no reservations about her ideas of the NY theater which I greatly appreciated. To summarize what she said: They keep doing blah plays so everyone is becoming blah like in their abilities. — Yea… so that pretty much sums it up according to what I’ve heard from the regular theater folk in NY. Sad, sad, sad, but true, true, true.
Back to Mourning, As I said I wasn’t pleased with the presentation and felt as though I let the class down a bit, but happily at 10:30 PM everyone had smiles on their faces as the show was awesome. Some claimed it to have been the best theater they’ve EVER seen while others were plain and simply happy with the experience. Me? Well, I enjoyed the show, but some of the actors pulled me out to often with their varied accents and choices. Accents? Yes, accents. Bostonian, Southern, an occassional British or Irish accent would slip in where it wasn’t supposed to be. The set though… not one person in the theater could complain about the set. It was THE most amazing set I have ever seen.
To ATTEMPT a visual for you it opened with the exterior of the Mannon home with a heavy angle to the set. From downstage right to up stage left was the end of the porch and from down stage left to upstage left was the entrance to the house. When shifted the interior would end up exactly opposite of the exterior. Shifted? Yes, the walls slid in and out from off stage left. THEN! OMG then! The porch cover which was decorated with a tattered American Flag slide down, literally DOWN (on the Y axis) to create the upper level of a boat docked in a harbor. At least I think it’s the Y axis = ) The lower deck was directly below the now lowered American flag. UGH! I’m not doing this justice. It was INCREDIBLE. The audience applauded the scene change it was that cool looking!
Oh… and where was I sitting for all of this? FRONT ROW seat 11! HAHA! The early morning rise had paid off so that 16 of us were able to see the show from the the front ROW! HAHAHAHA! THAT was a first for me and it was worth every ‘waking’ moment waiting for it in line from 7:30 AM until 10:00 AM that morning.
From there we all went home and pretty much collapsed as it was late and we were ALL beat.
Just remembered something… I went to the London Zoo after the Fiona Shaw’s chat and I saw… about six… cute… freaky… Ring Tailed LEMURS!!! So there! Yes… I took pix. = )
01-07-2004 12:05 pm