"My son is ... ... ... an actor!"
So last night I went with someone else to see The Illusion, the theater program's current show here at the you of are. Some thoughts:
Within the first five minutes I knew I'd be saying here that the design was incredible. Why? Because the design was incredible. They totally rocked that black box. The set was a mix of minimalist set done right (for example, at one point they used two bricks to represent a wall/gate/thing) and a few things you wouldn't really expect to see in a minimalist set (like a disco ball, or one of those mirrors you can see through with the right light, or a drum set). With the lighting--I complained to said someone else after we went in that they really shouldn't have the lights off while seating the audience, but once the show started it became apparent why they did that. (It didn't stop annoying me, mind you, but at least they had a reason.) I think my favorite lighting bit was some dripping water down from the ceiling into a bucket--there was a tiny light there shining straight down that you could barely see except when each drip fell, when the light made the drip really catch your eye. Sound... I don't really know anything about sound design (except what it's like when it goes horribly wrong?) so all I can really comment on is that only once did the sound seem to originate from the theater rather than from some onstage object or just as ambient sound. (So basically, just once a sound didn't mesh somehow. I wish I could remember the sound or anything more specific about it, but oh well.) Costumes... did what they were supposed to, until the end which I'll get back to later.
The acting was very good. I could nitpick at some things, but really, why? (It's interesting... most of my own theatrical experience is in acting, but as long as everyone is competent it's what I'm least interesting in analyzing.) The direction was also very good, though there were some moments that didn't sit right. The fight choreography--there was a swordfight--was very, uh, stage-combat-y. (My biggest issue was that one of the swordfighters had a tendency to react to attacks before they happened.)
...And so we come to the writing. Okay. Most of the play, my opinion of the writing was a casual "oh, this is good," because there were some good lines and it was very much the kind of play where you're not sure how good a plot it is until it wraps up at the end. And, um. Then the plot wrapped up at the end. And what the heck?
Something to know about The Illusion: it was originally by some French guy back in the day (read: Baroque), but was "freely adapted" by Tony Kushner. And when I bothered to read through the whole program (oh, the program) I found this lovely line: "However, the ending of The Illusion is the antithesis of the seventeenth century original, proving to be Kushner's clearest departure from Corneille." In other words, all of my problems with the ending? They are ALL TONY KUSHNER'S FAULT. I'm not going to go into exactly what problems I had with the ending because 1) complaining about the ending of something kind of inevitably spoils it 2) it wouldn't make much sense without first trying to explain the whole rest of the play and I don't feel like doing that... just know that I have problems with the ending. And they're all Tony Kushner's fault.
In other news. The latest in the series of Computer Peripherals that Break is my camera. Mind you, the camera itself is perfectly fine. The problem is that my computer doesn't want to read pictures from it. Or--well, okay. When the camera gets plugged into the computer, the computer does give off that badunk sound that means it found a new USB thing. Then, if it were working properly, a thing would pop up and I'd have the option to transfer photos over. That thing never pops up. I've tried to figure out if there are other ways to get into the camera, but nothing so far has worked--for example, I've looked at the cameras thing in the control panel, but it claims to not find any cameras. (And yes, the camera was both plugged in and on at the time.) This is getting kind of annoying... does my dorm room have some kind of anti-USB field or something?
Feh.
Within the first five minutes I knew I'd be saying here that the design was incredible. Why? Because the design was incredible. They totally rocked that black box. The set was a mix of minimalist set done right (for example, at one point they used two bricks to represent a wall/gate/thing) and a few things you wouldn't really expect to see in a minimalist set (like a disco ball, or one of those mirrors you can see through with the right light, or a drum set). With the lighting--I complained to said someone else after we went in that they really shouldn't have the lights off while seating the audience, but once the show started it became apparent why they did that. (It didn't stop annoying me, mind you, but at least they had a reason.) I think my favorite lighting bit was some dripping water down from the ceiling into a bucket--there was a tiny light there shining straight down that you could barely see except when each drip fell, when the light made the drip really catch your eye. Sound... I don't really know anything about sound design (except what it's like when it goes horribly wrong?) so all I can really comment on is that only once did the sound seem to originate from the theater rather than from some onstage object or just as ambient sound. (So basically, just once a sound didn't mesh somehow. I wish I could remember the sound or anything more specific about it, but oh well.) Costumes... did what they were supposed to, until the end which I'll get back to later.
The acting was very good. I could nitpick at some things, but really, why? (It's interesting... most of my own theatrical experience is in acting, but as long as everyone is competent it's what I'm least interesting in analyzing.) The direction was also very good, though there were some moments that didn't sit right. The fight choreography--there was a swordfight--was very, uh, stage-combat-y. (My biggest issue was that one of the swordfighters had a tendency to react to attacks before they happened.)
...And so we come to the writing. Okay. Most of the play, my opinion of the writing was a casual "oh, this is good," because there were some good lines and it was very much the kind of play where you're not sure how good a plot it is until it wraps up at the end. And, um. Then the plot wrapped up at the end. And what the heck?
Something to know about The Illusion: it was originally by some French guy back in the day (read: Baroque), but was "freely adapted" by Tony Kushner. And when I bothered to read through the whole program (oh, the program) I found this lovely line: "However, the ending of The Illusion is the antithesis of the seventeenth century original, proving to be Kushner's clearest departure from Corneille." In other words, all of my problems with the ending? They are ALL TONY KUSHNER'S FAULT. I'm not going to go into exactly what problems I had with the ending because 1) complaining about the ending of something kind of inevitably spoils it 2) it wouldn't make much sense without first trying to explain the whole rest of the play and I don't feel like doing that... just know that I have problems with the ending. And they're all Tony Kushner's fault.
In other news. The latest in the series of Computer Peripherals that Break is my camera. Mind you, the camera itself is perfectly fine. The problem is that my computer doesn't want to read pictures from it. Or--well, okay. When the camera gets plugged into the computer, the computer does give off that badunk sound that means it found a new USB thing. Then, if it were working properly, a thing would pop up and I'd have the option to transfer photos over. That thing never pops up. I've tried to figure out if there are other ways to get into the camera, but nothing so far has worked--for example, I've looked at the cameras thing in the control panel, but it claims to not find any cameras. (And yes, the camera was both plugged in and on at the time.) This is getting kind of annoying... does my dorm room have some kind of anti-USB field or something?
Feh.