Another look

[lillibet]

Last night we went to see a Harvard student production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead on the Mainstage at the ACT. It was really interesting to see another production so close on the heels of ours, when the lines are all fresh in my mind. It was quite different from our production in a number of ways and it was just about perfect in terms of seeing how different choices work and being able to appreciate the things they did well and the ways that I think our production was stronger. If anyone cares, I could talk more about this, but mostly I was very glad we went and still very proud of what we accomplished.

Comments

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I care. How were the Tragedians? Male or female? Dumb show as good as ours? Listening, listening...

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Their Tragedians were quite different from ours. First of all, their Player was very young (he's a freshman) and slight, which really changed his relationship with the leads and with the Tragedians. The Tragedians were a mix of men and women (or boys and girls, they were more in the "ragamuffin" category) which made the whole "Alfred" (played by a guy) thing kind of odd, although he was very good. They really played up the poor, starving thing--on "clowns" one guy gets hit in the face with a pie and everyone else yells "Food!" and leaps on him, and the whole scramble for the coin was much more pronounced. They had a lot of good movement and little "bits," particularly on the cross behind Polonius ("Come, sirs!"). They did a bit that was clever, creating a "slideshow" with a spotlight in which each Trag. posed after "See anything you like?" while the dialogue continued--which severely distracted from the dialogue. Their dumbshow was funnier than ours, in some ways--"mounting the throne" was even more explicit--but not as smooth, I think. Oddly, I think the bench really helped ours. We all laughed when they did exactly the same movements for "And they depart. On board ship." as we did, but without the smooth dismount. And they did nothing with "...the English king. The English king!" They didn't do either of the "Show!" death scenes--the Player-King and Polonius died in the dumbshow, of course, and then they each died on the "They can die heroically, comically, ironically..." speech.

So overall, I would say that while they had a lot of good, even brilliant bits, our Trag Queens could whup their "juvenile company" any night of the run.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Heehee! Trag Queens rule!

How were the R&G? Not nearly as sexy as our boys, I'm sure, but the acting?

Production differences

[kalisti23.livejournal.com]

Was there a clear picture of how the "spine" of the two productions differed? By spine I mean the overall meaning, objective, lesson, for instance: To appreciate life while lived; To grapple with mortality: etc... ?

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

If anyone cares, I could talk more about this

That's what LJ cuts are for.