Threaded Order Chronological Order
| re: It's. One. Play. | |
| Posted by: writerkev 08:18 am EDT 10/08/23 | |
| In reply to: re: It's. One. Play. - ablankpage 10:41 pm EDT 10/07/23 | |
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| Interestingly, Arena Stage presented “Millennium Approaches” last season, and I assumed they’d follow it up with “Perestroika” this season, but that’s not the case. They saw fit to produce just the first part as a full play. | |
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| re: It's. One. Play. | |
| Posted by: BruceinIthaca 04:44 pm EDT 10/08/23 | |
| In reply to: re: It's. One. Play. - writerkev 08:18 am EDT 10/08/23 | |
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| A few years ago, Robert Moss guest-directed a production of Millennium Approaches with a student cast at Ithaca College. Granted, that choice may have in part been dictated by the exigencies associated with an academic theatre department (i.e. need to have more productions of different shows in a season and need to be able to cast more students throughout the year, though a different cast could, i suppose, have been used for each part. The people who planned the season must have decided that MA had enough integrity to stand on its own--and the audience is not simply IC students and faculty, but the community at large. The Hangar Theatre (also in Ithaca)produced MA as a stand-alone in 1996 and could have done both parts had they chosen to (Moss directed that production), so it seem to be an open question--one worth considering. (Except for Singaport/Fling, who has made his pronouncement and all others clearly must be wrong.) My sense is that, at least at one point, people thought MA superior as a dramatic script to Perestroika, and that it was a satisfying experience on its own terms--the opinion may have shifted. Would we consider Henry IV-1 and Henry IV-2 or any of the three parts of Henry VI a single play? (Obviously, a company can produce them together should they choose.) How about Another Part of the Forest and The Little Foxes (granted, there is large time difference between those two plays)? I suppose the rule of thumb is that the first play in a sequence has a better chance of standing alone, as it does not require knowledge that extends beyond the text of that play. An interesting counter-example from the Greeks--Antigone was written (and I think)produced before the other two Theban plays and is quite frequently produced as an entire evening. I think Oedipus the King is also, Colonus less so (though IC did a production of it on its own more than twenty years ago, and there is The Gospel at Colonus); in the time of the Greeks, audiences would have known the stories, in the same way that it was not necessary to produce an entire cycle during the Medieval Period in Europe. I think the simplest answer, though one begging larger ones, is that when MA is produced on its own, it is intended to be a "whole" experience, when done in rep with Perestroika, the company/director/producers may regard them as two very long halves of a different experience. | |
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| re: It's. One. Play. | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 03:12 pm EDT 10/09/23 | |
| In reply to: re: It's. One. Play. - BruceinIthaca 04:44 pm EDT 10/08/23 | |
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| The question of Greek plays is an interesting one. Gallery Players in Brooklyn just presented a run of Aeschylus' THE ORESTEIA, which is three plays that essentially tell a continuing story. Galley chose to present the plays individually on week nights and all together as a four hour single presentation, with two intermissions, on weekends. I believe that these works are generally considered separate plays, but part of a cycle. And I think they do stand alone in their way, but I'd never have recommended to anyone to just see part of the cycle. I think audiences would get so much more out of the individual parts by seeing how the story functions as a whole. |
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