Shakespeare, ho!
Sooo, here's Part One of my Ashland commentary.
Now, A Midsummer Night's Dream is the one we couldn't tickets to before we left, because it was waaaay sold out. So, on Tuesday night Mom and Li'l Sis got tickets to Our Town, and then Li'l Sis, Li'l Bro and I waited for ticket release to see if there was any possibility at all of getting Midsummer. (As a side note, while we waited, we totally freaked out the other people in line after us, because I was making my sister run my Tybalt/Puck lines with me.) Long story short, the couple in front of us declined the only two released ticked because the seats weren't together. My brother and I went "Screw that" and got them. Li'l Sis had Our Town anyway, so it all things were glorious.
The actual show was awesome. They used this bizzare blend of 1950s-1980s colors and styles for the design; I believe "funky" was a good description. The faeries were fantastic. it's one of the only productions I've ever seen/hear of where all the attendant faeries were male, which was awesome...and their costumes were shiny tight pants, combat boots, black tutus, and fishnet shirts. John Tufts, the actor who played Puck, was brilliant and I'd totally marry him if not for the fact that, being cute, talented, and in theater, he is probably either taken or gay. Starky mentioned that Michael Elich (Theseus) had been one of his favorite actors last year, and between seeing him in this and Coriolanus later, I have to agree. The characters were polar opposites, but he played them both perfectly. The lovers were all good, but especially the boys. I didn't care as much for the girls, but I think it was more a personal preference for how they get played that anything about the actors themselves. The mechanicals were awesome with their hippie-painted VW Bus (which they drove on stage in their first entrance). Also, major major points to this production for the play-within-a-play, because it wasn't 20 minutes of Bottom chewing scenery. Actually, he kinda just delivered his lines as one long, fast, nervous, sentence, and it was genius. Oberon and Titania were great and they had great chemistry-very volatile.
Go look at pictures and watch the little preview to get the full impact of the psychadelic colors. I am saddened that they don't have a good picture of Puck as he looks now. I think that blue chest-piece-think got ditched, because he didn't have that and had better face makeup when we saw it.
Wednesday afternoon was Coriolanus. They gave it a more contemporary feel of a modern army defending against rebel guerillas, which worked incredibly well. The tribunes were in suits, checking news of the war on their PDAs and laptops, the Romans and the Volscians waged war with assault rifles, and the women were Vogue-cover army wives. Since the soldiers doubled for both armies and as the citizens, the cotumes were very distinct to indicate who was on what side when. I loved the costumes for the citizens, which were mostly greys and tans with a lot of beanies and knitted gloves and jeans, but all of them had some sort of hoodie or overshirt that was printed with faces. Picture here of the two main citizens that did most of those scenes. Danforth Comins (Coriolanus) and Michael Elich (Aufidius) were amazingly brilliant. There was so much power and tension and energy in both of them. (And for those of you wondering, yes, there was massive UST in the scene when Coriolanus came to join up with Aufidius. And then there was the moment when Aufidius nearly cut off Coriolanus' manhood.) Robynn Rodriguez played Volumnia and was wonderfully powerful and frightening.
Pictures can be found here. The other awesome thing was that it was performed in the round, so through the whole things the soldiers were running in around the audience and popping up from traps in the floor. The lighting effects were beautiful and creepy and did as much to convey the mood as the actors did.
And I'm sleepy, so I'll write about Comedy of Errors and the last performance of my Midsummer tomorrow.
Now, A Midsummer Night's Dream is the one we couldn't tickets to before we left, because it was waaaay sold out. So, on Tuesday night Mom and Li'l Sis got tickets to Our Town, and then Li'l Sis, Li'l Bro and I waited for ticket release to see if there was any possibility at all of getting Midsummer. (As a side note, while we waited, we totally freaked out the other people in line after us, because I was making my sister run my Tybalt/Puck lines with me.) Long story short, the couple in front of us declined the only two released ticked because the seats weren't together. My brother and I went "Screw that" and got them. Li'l Sis had Our Town anyway, so it all things were glorious.
The actual show was awesome. They used this bizzare blend of 1950s-1980s colors and styles for the design; I believe "funky" was a good description. The faeries were fantastic. it's one of the only productions I've ever seen/hear of where all the attendant faeries were male, which was awesome...and their costumes were shiny tight pants, combat boots, black tutus, and fishnet shirts. John Tufts, the actor who played Puck, was brilliant and I'd totally marry him if not for the fact that, being cute, talented, and in theater, he is probably either taken or gay. Starky mentioned that Michael Elich (Theseus) had been one of his favorite actors last year, and between seeing him in this and Coriolanus later, I have to agree. The characters were polar opposites, but he played them both perfectly. The lovers were all good, but especially the boys. I didn't care as much for the girls, but I think it was more a personal preference for how they get played that anything about the actors themselves. The mechanicals were awesome with their hippie-painted VW Bus (which they drove on stage in their first entrance). Also, major major points to this production for the play-within-a-play, because it wasn't 20 minutes of Bottom chewing scenery. Actually, he kinda just delivered his lines as one long, fast, nervous, sentence, and it was genius. Oberon and Titania were great and they had great chemistry-very volatile.
Go look at pictures and watch the little preview to get the full impact of the psychadelic colors. I am saddened that they don't have a good picture of Puck as he looks now. I think that blue chest-piece-think got ditched, because he didn't have that and had better face makeup when we saw it.
Wednesday afternoon was Coriolanus. They gave it a more contemporary feel of a modern army defending against rebel guerillas, which worked incredibly well. The tribunes were in suits, checking news of the war on their PDAs and laptops, the Romans and the Volscians waged war with assault rifles, and the women were Vogue-cover army wives. Since the soldiers doubled for both armies and as the citizens, the cotumes were very distinct to indicate who was on what side when. I loved the costumes for the citizens, which were mostly greys and tans with a lot of beanies and knitted gloves and jeans, but all of them had some sort of hoodie or overshirt that was printed with faces. Picture here of the two main citizens that did most of those scenes. Danforth Comins (Coriolanus) and Michael Elich (Aufidius) were amazingly brilliant. There was so much power and tension and energy in both of them. (And for those of you wondering, yes, there was massive UST in the scene when Coriolanus came to join up with Aufidius. And then there was the moment when Aufidius nearly cut off Coriolanus' manhood.) Robynn Rodriguez played Volumnia and was wonderfully powerful and frightening.
Pictures can be found here. The other awesome thing was that it was performed in the round, so through the whole things the soldiers were running in around the audience and popping up from traps in the floor. The lighting effects were beautiful and creepy and did as much to convey the mood as the actors did.
And I'm sleepy, so I'll write about Comedy of Errors and the last performance of my Midsummer tomorrow.