Reviews
Unfortunately, I have not had the time to go and view exhibitions. I have, however, been able to see a few shows over the semester.
Gypsy
BSU put on their rendition of Gypsy back in October, and I liked it up to a point. After a while, the mother’s voice got a little overbearing. I walked out of there with a raging headache. Fantastic singer with a powerful voice, but good lord, it was constant belted out notes with minimal dialogue. After hearing the same note get hit over and over again in the course of one song, my head felt like a drum.
Aside from this, I quite enjoyed the show. The costumes were perfect, the hair and makeup were fantastic, and the execution was wonderful. On the sides of the stage, there were short walls with little windows. In these windows, there were two signs. On the left was a sign that said “Gypsy,” and on the right was a sign that said whichever city they were in. Every time they moved cities, the signs switched. So “Gypsy” started on the left, but when they moved, the sign was moved to the right, and then back to the left, and so on. It was a really good way to let the audience know which city they were in, and it also helped the audience realize that they switched cities.
The children in the musical did a fantastic job, and I think my favorite part was the transition from children to teenagers. I thought it was seamless, and it was very easy to understand what was going on.
Overall, it was an interesting show. I would have done it a little differently so the mother wasn’t the only one singing all of the time, but other than that it was well executed.
Closet Land
BSU put on another show, Closet Land, back in November, and I think it was one of the greatest shows I have ever seen in my entire life (so far). This show was based on the 1991 film with Alan Rickman and Madeleine Stowe, and it was outstanding. This was a class project for a class that one of my other professors teaches. It involved two characters with no names and one set. Its simplicity is not overused as there was always something happening. I liked this play so much that I watched the film, and then wrote an essay for another class about how the sound effects were used to put the audience in the victim’s mind.
The execution of this play was impeccable. The class built bleachers on top of the stage for the audience in order to make the set closer and more intimate. The play addressed some dark topics such as torture, and assault, and the class wanted the audience to feel closer to the victim. The lighting and sound effects did a great job at putting us in the mind of the victim. Whenever something happened to the victim, it also happened to us. For example, there is a part where the interrogator slams the victim’s head on the table and suddenly there is a loud ringing that reflects what the victim hears. The ringing goes away as the interrogator tells her what to do to get rid of the pain. This also happens while she has flashbacks. Since this isn’t film, the audience has no way of knowing that she’s having a flashback – or do they? Whenever she would talk about her past, the victim would speak slowly, and while she talked, sound effects would play that represented what she remembered such as church bells, hangers chiming, and a closet door creaking.
On top of the sound effects, another effective aspect of the play was the silence. During heavy moments, there was silence, and it made me very uncomfortable just as the victim felt. The entire play left me thinking, “what the hell did I just watch?” it was that good.
After the play, the class had a post-play discussion where they sat and chatted with the audience about what just happened. They addressed government torture, assault, and other parts of the play that they wanted the audience to know about. They listened to the audience’s reactions, discussed the issues, and sent us on our merry way. Fantastic performance. Fantastic execution. Fantastic show.
Oliver
At the beginning of December, my town’s high school put on the musical Oliver. I used to work on stage crew, and after I left, they built a new school. This was the first show in the new auditorium, and it was outstanding. Their last show, High School Musical was horrendous, so this was a huge step up from that one. The sound and lighting were much more advanced, the setting was huge, and the acting/music was outstanding.
Since the new school has high school, middle school, and some elementary, the director decided to open it up to all students, and that was a great decision. Oliver has a lot of small kids in it, so this musical also used many children while the high schoolers played the adults. The cast was enormous, and their costumes were great. The orchestra and the singing were fantastic as well. I could feel the passion from the stage.
One criticism that I have is that whenever someone sang, there would be a spotlight that shone on them. The problem was that when two people were singing, the operator didn’t know who to keep the light on, and the hesitation was noticeable.
Aside from that, I quite enjoyed the musical. The passion was incredible, and I would definitely consider it one of the school’s best performances.
Wrestling
Recently, I attended the Studio for Interrelated Wrestling at Mass Art. My friend goes to Mass Art and participated in the show, so she gave me a lot of insight on what was happening. The SIW is a play on words (sort of) for the SIM major (Studio for Interrelated Media). It was clever how they simply turned the “M” upside down into a “W” but the title of the match could have had a better, more concise name.
Regardless, the show was fantastic. They had several hilarious matches such as Dog vs Mailman, Manager vs Angry Mom, and Gumby vs a bunch of other Gumbys. They trained with a professional wrestler for about a month to choreograph and work through the moves. It was interesting to watch, and most definitely entertaining. Sometimes the hits sold, and sometimes they didn’t but either way, it was fun to watch.
They had filmed backstories that were going to be played before each match in order to show the audience why they were fighting. There were also supposed to be stats that they made, but they weren’t edited in time and had to cut both the stats and the videos. This worked against them because these would have gotten the audience more involved. We would have been able to get to know the characters and pick our favorites/who we would route for, but without the videos, we just had to pick whichever one seemed cool to us. Without the backstories, some of the matches didn’t make sense. For example, my friend Cherry Bomb fought a clown. Initially, this doesn’t make as much sense as Dog vs Mailman, but with her backstory, the fight is very intriguing.
In the middle of the matches, their instructor and one of the fighters started “arguing” which set up their finale fight. The instructor called the kid “dipshit” so the crowd kept chanting “dipshit” all throughout their match. This was great because it set us up to hate the instructor. Their finale fight had the most stunts, and it was highly entertaining to watch. Also, the host was British, had a neat bowtie, and had wicked cool pants so she added a lot of energy and entertainment to the show.
Overall, I loved it. This was one of the most entertaining performances I’ve seen in a while, and the crowd was very into it. Knowing their backstories, the characters were hilarious and well thought out, but without them, they were a little superficial. If they plan on doing this again, I would say spend more time making sure the stories are finished. Aside from that, everything was perfect.
