Last Night
Mark and I went to the Colorado Shakespeare Festival production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona last night. They did that show in 2001, the first year I worked there, and I have a soft spot for it, despite it not being one of his best plays.
No one ever does Shakespeare straight anymore, and it’s very rare that I am surprised by how a director chooses to do it. I was last night, however. They did it as a rehearsal. The director wrote a bit of a play-outside-the-play around it (mostly just rehearsal stuff, but with an underlying mini-plot about one of the actors and the director clashing about how the actor should be playing the part). It could have been very bad; luckily, it wasn’t. It wasn’t spectacular, but it worked pretty well. There was one moment that came across a little too contrived, but otherwise, I wasn’t too offended.
The theater geeks like me would have had quite a few complaints about the way they portrayed the rehearsals (the actor-character versions of themselves the actors were portraying were very unprofessional, among other things), but I took a deep breath and let it go - they were fudging reality to give the audience a fun show.
The actual play was very good, and I really enjoyed seeing it again. We had a good time.
No one ever does Shakespeare straight anymore, and it’s very rare that I am surprised by how a director chooses to do it. I was last night, however. They did it as a rehearsal. The director wrote a bit of a play-outside-the-play around it (mostly just rehearsal stuff, but with an underlying mini-plot about one of the actors and the director clashing about how the actor should be playing the part). It could have been very bad; luckily, it wasn’t. It wasn’t spectacular, but it worked pretty well. There was one moment that came across a little too contrived, but otherwise, I wasn’t too offended.
The theater geeks like me would have had quite a few complaints about the way they portrayed the rehearsals (the actor-character versions of themselves the actors were portraying were very unprofessional, among other things), but I took a deep breath and let it go - they were fudging reality to give the audience a fun show.
The actual play was very good, and I really enjoyed seeing it again. We had a good time.