| an actual baffling misstep... | |
| Last Edit: Chromolume 11:29 pm EST 12/29/21 | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 11:28 pm EST 12/29/21 | |
| In reply to: re: i found the final image of film to be a baffling misstep... - Chromolume 10:08 pm EST 12/29/21 | |
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| Back in 2004, I saw the Trinity Rep production of West Side Story. Admittedly, I was dragged to it - it was an Amanda Dehnert "concept" production, and I really wasn't all that enthused. But then I really started to get hooked on it. Part of the "concept" was that the ensemble played everyone depending on the scene - meaning that sometimes they were all Jets, or all Sharks, or some combination - but it was fluid in that sense. But Dehnert and the choreographer found ways to make that stage language make visual sense right away, and I found myself buying into it. Tony Yazbek played Tony, and was very good. There was another part of the visual concept. The rather empty unit set was "titled" by having cast members spray white paint, graffiti-like, on the set. ("Doc's Drugstore" perhaps, or "The Dress Shop" etc.) It gave the feeling of someone spraypainting on the road or a vacant lot, and it worked. Until the last moments of the show. For which I still want my money back, sorry to say. As I recall, there was something akin to the customary procession at the end, carrying Tony's body off. But then in the last section of the music, the spraypainters appeared again. This time with color paint - and they very quickly painted a complete beautiful colorful replica of the production's logo. Which made no real sense, and robbed everyone of the dramatic impact of the last scene. It was a visual "coup de theatre" in a sense, but it was completely unwarranted and unsatisfying, and didn't match the tone of the show's ending. Much as I had enjoyed the bulk of the production, this left me with a sort of "I told you so" feeling about Dehnert's concept productions. As if, "forget about the show and the plight of the characters at the end - look what we can do with the set!!!!!!! Wow!!!!!" This from the theatre and director that got a cease-and-desist notice after trying to change the ending of Annie the year before this (by having Annie back in the orphanage after all - "it was all a dream"). As I recall, they were forced to restore the proper ending. |
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| Previous: | re: i found the final image of film to be a baffling misstep... - Chazwaza 04:47 am EST 12/30/21 |
| Next: | re: an actual baffling misstep.../ MY vision of WSS or TINY ALICE etc - bmc 11:41 am EST 12/30/21 |
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