Terra Nova playwriting review

I took some issue with this STF production. While I felt that parts of it were good, it had some serious flaws.

The main one for me was that the direction proved to be frustrating. Now, since this is a theatre-in-the-round show, literally every single seat in the audience will give you a unique experience of the play. Unfortunately, for my particular seat, I missed out on much of the action. The scene where Scott is talking to Evans inside the tent was completely lost for me because the other men were all standing in perfection formation to block my view. I could tell it was a pivotal scene because of the dialogue, but unfortunately I saw almost nothing of it. The same thing happened later when they reveal Oates' frozen foot. I could tell from the audience reaction that his foot was supposed to be hideous, but from my distance and angle I could only see what looked like a bloody sock. It was very disappointing.

I also have another quibble that may or may not have merit. I liked the acting. I thought all of the actors did a great job bringing intensity and honesty to their roles. However, I did not like the fact that only Amundsen had a Norwegian accent, and the other actors did not have English accents. This asymmetry created two problems. First, it gave too much inequality to the characters. While I understand that Amundsen is supposed to be an outsider, he seemed to be too much outside of the scope of the production when he was the only one with an accent. Second, it highlighted how the English dialogue was an awkward fit for American tongues. Every time someone used a decidedly English word, like "bloody," it sounded unrealistic in an American accent, and took me out of the play a little.

As far as the plot goes, it was pretty good. I liked how Scott's memories, dreams, and perception of reality were all blended together. I didn't like how much the first half seemed to plod along a lot, and same with the beginning of the second half. The last part of the show was really interesting to watch, though.

As far as the set goes, I wasn't too amazed by the floor design. The sheets hanging from above looked pretty interesting. I think I was most impressed by the equipment and the sled they used; those were fantastic. The sound design was good; I liked the effects of the wind. The lights were okay. Sometimes I lost sight of their faces. Oh, and how could I forget the makeup! It was extremely well-done. I especially enjoyed the windburned look on the actors' faces.

This play seems like it doesn't fit quite well in a round stage. I think it really needs a proscenium staging in order to work.

Bug playwriting review

This is the one show in the Senior Theatre Festival that I actually managed to read before I saw it, so I had some idea of what I thought the show would be like going into it.

First, I thought the set was extremely well-done. In my opinion, it is just as much of a character in Bug as Peter or Agnes. I really enjoyed how it evolved over the course of the play, and how, from start to finish, it felt very lived-in. One thing I really wished for was something to suggest what the wallpaper looked like...possibly some panels around the closet or bathroom door. I could understand how grimy the hotel was supposed to look from the floor, but I think seeing what the walls looked like would have made it more convincing.

I think the actors did a great job with the dialogue of Bug. The talking, especially in the beginning, is very "chattery"--the characters talk over one another, often with very inane speech. I know some people complained that the actors were having trouble making themselves heard over one another, but I think that is sort of the point. I think Max Westhelle's Peter Evans was very convincing, and he went above and beyond what I had expected from the character: he was awkward, bizarre, and downright frightening. My favorite Peter moment was when he jumped all over the place explaining to Agnes his entire conspiracy theory. He effectively became a psychotic ballerina. I loved it.

I also enjoyed Caitie Auld's performance of Agnes. I really liked the direction she had in the beginning when she was in the hotel alone for a while. It really helped to highlight her isolation and how Peter would change that later. I think she did a good job of showing the character's confusion to everything happening around her, and her frenzied desperation to understand it all.

While I think Max's performance was the best, a close second had to be Noah Kaplan's Jerry. He did a wonderful job nailing down what a bastard Jerry is to Agnes and Peter. I think his characterization can be summed up by the snakeskin boots that he wore: sleek but slimy.

Overall, the direction for Bug was good. I never felt like I was really losing a lot of what was going on in the scene, as it so often happens with theatre-in-the-round. The actors all did a very good job at playing to all sides of the audience. I really enjoyed the performance.

Fences playwriting review

I will say upfront that I felt that the Seattle Rep production of Fences was faithful to my perception of the script. They did a very good job with it. That said, I did have a couple of quibbles.

The first was the actor playing Cory. I felt that for the most part, he did a good job with the role. Cory's character, to me, is definitely the whiny type, and I think the actor did a fine job representing that. However, I had issues with his portrayal in the final scene. To me, it seemed like he was being far too stoic around his family. I understand, Cory is supposed to have been in the Marines for all this time, so perhaps he is a little emotionally hardened by his experiences. Still, I didn't like the fact that he faced out to the audience the whole time that Rose spoke to him. I sorta see now how he was trying to stick to the theme of the play--putting up a metaphorical fence to keep some things in and other things out of himself. But I think he took it too far. Sure, have Cory be distant, but I think he's at least a little happy to see his family.

In the same scene, I felt like Gabriel's "howl" was unsatisfying. What I got from reading the script was that the end of the play was supposed to be cacophonous. Instead, it felt limp. I think it would have been a lot more interesting to give Gabriel a boost on the tech side of the show--maybe play with the sound design a little bit. I guess the risk with that would be that it would make his performance maybe a little less genuine, but I think it could have used a little more to add to the spectacle.

Otherwise, I thought all the performances were very good. Bono did well being a reliable but questioning friend to Troy. Rose did well being a loving wife to Troy, and her grief at his revelation felt believable. I think the actor playing Lyons did a good job of making his portrayal likable but slightly shady. And Troy, of course, was great. His anger and sweeping emotions came across very well.

Comedic 10-Minute Plays

David Ives' The Philadelphia works really well as long as you have actors who have a good sense of timing. While the banter is good, I think that it is only really effective when the actors know when to step in with their lines. The back-and-forth between Mark and the Waitress is the foremost example. Since their lines rhyme with one another, keeping the right tempo is key. Otherwise, this script was very strong--the story was short and to the point, and it was entertaining. (It provokes some thought, too...what would being in a Tacoma be like? A San Francisco? A St. Paul?)

Duet For Bear And Dog is interesting because right up until the last page or two, it is a very funny play. "She" is particularly hilarious--the random idea that She is a Russian immigrant, and initially mistakes the bear for her husband, helps keep the short play sharp and unpredictable. At the very end, though, Bear steps out of the scene and has a very dramatic speech about giving birth. I think this works, because it doesn't completely negate everything that has already happened in the play. It is very bittersweet: here we have a bear who has no choice but to eat out of dumpsters, but she warmly reflects on living in the woods and raising her cubs.

Anything For You is good because the conflict is entirely self-contained. Lynette's distress over needing to find someone to sleep with eventually leads to Gail admitting that she is in love with Lynette, despite her denials. When they don't know what to do about their huge conundrum, they settle for solving their smaller problem: what they are going to order. It ends basically the way it begins--a casual dinner between friends. It is full of soap opera cliches, and that is what makes it so very funny.

Erin Blackwell's Aimée does a good job of spoofing national security and surveillance. Aimée plays an aggravated straight man to the serious, deadpan Larry and Madge, which is extremely funny. The play also manages to offer an interesting take on the debate about love and its authenticity. Of course, it ends up ridiculing the debate by having the two absurd characters of Larry and Madge fall in love with one another. I don't think this play would work as a longer piece, which is why it is strong as a 10-minute play.

Dramatic 10-Minute Plays

I would have to say that my favorite of all these plays would be That Midnight Rodeo. It starts out so casually, it seems like an authentic conversation. At first, it seems like Cindy is really just obsessing over her career as a horse racer, and she keeps mentioning that she has to do something. By the last few pages, though, it becomes obvious what that "something" is: she needs to get an abortion, or else she will no longer be able to compete. The realization of what she is saying comes sort of suddenly, yet it also arrives very smoothly, thanks to Cindy's mentioning of particular things relating to going to a doctor. This play works so well because it doesn't immediately spoil the surprise of her pregnancy. If Mary Sue Price were to have the characters talk explicitly about an abortion from the get-go, the script would potentially be a lot less interesting. The characters managed to say what they need to without actually saying it, which is why the dialogue sounds so real.

I also liked The Roads That Lead Here. I really enjoyed the interactions between all of them. Marcus and Xander were good for their overeager, overzealous behaviors, especially in their fun conversation before Jason arrives ("You bastard!"). Jason worked well as a means of grounding the other two, and helping to temper the audience of the play. This is a play where I would've maybe liked to look into their world more: how the three brothers began doing their task; what their interactions with others are like; what sort of person the Eminent is. I could totally see it working as something more than a 10-minute play, but instead, we get this small glimpse, and it works.

The Man Who Couldn't Dance was alright (but loses some points right out of the gate for having a really boring title). I think this play was a good example how to pull off good verbal sparring--where characters stick barbs in one another, but hold back just enough to keep the other person from leaving the room. Within the span of this script, we get a pretty good sense of what the relationship was like between Eric and Gail compared to how it is now. It got a bit too dramatic at times, but still managed to have a pretty interesting plot.

A Bowl of Soup was the least interesting to me. The plot was simple in a way that did not work, mainly because Eric Lane let Eddie have 95% of the dialogue. I really wish I could have heard more from Rob; I know he's supposed to be mournful, but I didn't like that he just allowed Eddie to ramble on and on.

Fences

This play was great. Troy Maxson strikes me as an extremely rich character. Full of contradictions, his place as a tragic hero is well-deserved. I am stunned by how he manages to speak at length about his poor treatment as a child one moment and then go and berate those around him the next. I particularly liked how Wilson wrote the dialogue of Bono's accusations that Troy has been seeing another woman. Troy comes off so smoothly with his denials and sidesteps that you believe he isn't guilty of adultery. Though narratively I knew there was no way he wasn't having some kind of intimate relationship with Alberta, I hadn't anticipated that he'd go so far as to tell Rose that he was going to be a father. That part of the play was extremely well-written.

The metaphor of fences in the play was very potent. At one point, Troy wonders why exactly Rose wants a fence around the house. Bono replies that there are two reasons to put up fences: to keep people out, or to keep people in. Little does Troy realize, he's been putting up and knocking down many fences over the course of the play. He knocks his own fence down to go visit Alberta. He puts up another fence to keep Cory from excelling in football. He also fences Rose into the house. He keeps a fence up against Lyons and Gabriel, because they both make him feel guilty and frustrated--Lyons for reminding Troy of his past mistakes, and Gabriel for reminding Troy that he's is the only reason the Maxsons "have a pot to piss in" because of his pension. The main reason for all of these fences is that Troy, deep down, is actually quite a selfish character. He goes on and on about how he doesn't have to like people, it's his responsibility to take care of them. The problem is that without love, there just isn't any real motivation for Troy to keep taking good care of his family.

I liked the dialogue in Fences. It did not have that sort of forced dramatic diction that happens so often in bad plays. Here, the language is raw and the delivery is realistic. It really added well to the atmosphere of the play. I also know that the play was quite long to read--and I imagine the performance would be more or less the same length--but I think it was well-paced. There were strong monologues mixed into all the dialogue that occurs. I particularly liked Troy's speeches, as well as the one Rose delivers to Troy near the end of the play.

Eurydice

First, I would just like to say that I really enjoyed reading the story of Eurydice. It's been a long time since I heard/read it, so this was a good experience.

I also really enjoyed reading Sarah Ruhl's adaptation. One of the most distinctive things about her script is that the stage directions don't read like typical stage directions. Instead of having somewhat of a neutral tone, the stage directions are as if another person is speaking in the play. Here were a couple parts that really struck me. The first is in the beginning scene 1 in the second movement:

"The underworld.
There is no set change.
Strange watery noises.
Drip, drip, drip..."

Another part that I liked was in scene 2, third movement:

"She takes another step forward.
She hesitates.
She is all of a sudden not so brave.
She is afraid.

SHE LOOKS BACK."

And then, in the same scene:

"HE TURNS TOWARD HER, STARTLED.
ORPHEUS LOOKS AT EURYDICE.
EURYDICE LOOKS AT ORPHEUS.
THE WORLD FALLS AWAY."

Ruhl's lack of fear regarding CAPITAL LETTERS gives the stage directions a much greater sense of urgency and emotion. It is like she is really trying to shout across the divide between the playwright and the director/performers. It gives the story not only physical cues for how it should be performed, but it also provides the feelings that should be conveyed to the audience. Ruhl desires a sensory experience; the "drip, drip, drip" is evident of that.

Continuing in the vein of stage directions, it's interesting that Ruhl has such a fondness for wordless interludes--the brief scenes featuring Eurydice's grandmother, for example. She is clearly not a fan of having overly talky plays. She wants her characters to be physical, and so Eurydice has very active characters.

Overall, I really liked the motifs and imagery that Ruhl brought to the story with her script. Rather than having the "underworld" be fiery and dark, she keeps it the same as the "real world": wet and rusty. The ideas for the staging are strange and wonderful, particularly the raining elevator Eurydice enters the underworld in. I enjoyed the characters of The Stones; their contrarian attitude to the other characters was very entertaining. I was interested by how Ruhl focused so much on Eurydice rebuilding her relationship with her dead father--though it is understandable, given that the play is dedicated to the memory of Ruhl's father. The ending I found to be pretty disturbing--in death, all the characters are put into the stasis of lost memory.

One thing that kind of bothered me about this script is that the longer it goes on, the more the scene switches between the underworld and the real world. I think that this prevents the script from being very flexible for small performances, and I worry that it might jar the audience too much.