It began in a blackbox. So far so good. Then Mother Courage came out in character and played with the audience trying to sell them watches and buy jewelry off of them. A bit of a gimmick, granted – by my hopes reached up. I thought I was going to see an entirely new take on this literally, war horse of a play. Then the play began, and all was back to the uninspired – – apart from placing the play in the Congo it was what I expected – – but then Tonya Pinkins, as Mother Courage, began to sing and I was right back there in the past with her in the front row of Caroline, or Change. Once she sings you can never forget that voice – – so beautiful, so rich, and so full of soul. NOW, I was in love with this show. Continue reading Mother Courage and Her Children→
My body tingled from the very first moment – – and all the way through the curtain call. I tingled. The hair stood up on my arms. I was in theatre nirvana. Never for a moment did I disengage from this show. In fact I tried to sit in the audience after the curtain call just to enjoy the high of the show for as long as I was able. Continue reading Spring Awakening→
This play has appeared on my Theatre History test for the last 25 years. The question reads, “What classic naturalistic novel established the writing career of Emile Zola?” The answer is – – you got it!
I was so anxious to see this almost-never-done play to see if my lectures had any truth to them. To begin, I thought it a bit odd that this production was on Broadway. To me this play just seems to scream Off-Broadway. How in the world did this choice translate to the huge Studio 54 venue? I was more then curious. Continue reading Therese Raquin→
Back on the plane to Jacksonville, with the extremes of Once Upon a Mattress and View from the Bridge in my brain. It is having some trouble putting both of these TWO shows in the same weekend! I will be back to work tomorrow for the next three weeks. I will be moving my acting class from Viewpoints to Meisner work and preparing for my return to NYC in just 3 weeks – – and when I return it will be for TWO full weeks so – – you can be sure I will be feeding my addiction with energy! Till then, catch up with my thoughts for the acting classroom on www.theatreclassaddict.com
So much to love about this production and so much to be totally annoyed with! I found the idea of taking this quintessential piece of American realism with its walls, floors, furnitures, carpets, doilies and hokie Italian artwork and stripping it down to nothing was really exciting. Gone were all the trappings of the set. Replacing the set was a stark bright white floor looking hard, unforgiving and anesthetic. A ring of black benches circled the square and a simple doorway was placed upstage center. Captivating in the very first minute! As the “boxed curtain” rose around the white square we witness two men, Eddie Carbone (an amazing, haunting Mark Strong) and his co-worker taking a shower under a massive steaming running shower. The masculinity and working class grit was there at the beginning. Continue reading A View from the Bridge→
Mother Courage and Her Children
