![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Last one to leave, turn out the stars...
Jul. 24th, 2004 07:31 amWatching a play at American Players Theater is unlike any other event. Of course, there are the theatrical pluses: excellent acting, beautiful costumes, etc, etc...but the best part is the setting itself.
Last night I watched "The London Assurance", an 1840s comedy about fashion and manners. I expected to be indifferent; usually that stuff is dry and dull or loaded with childish humor. I loved it. Not only for the plummiest accents ever (haw!), but the actual story was good and fun. The actors were wonderful, playing the aging fop or the bouncing huntress or her doddering husband with great glee. (And the lawyer, Meddle, was excellent--padded butt and everything.)
Last week I saw "Twelfth Night", which has sparked some thinking about how Shakespeare views mockery. I'll ruminate on it further in another post, but to anyone who has seen it--how do _you_ regard Malvolio at the end, especially his "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you" threat, or the weak apology that Belch makes in saying that it was all done in jest, not for harm.
Plus Orsino, Viola, Olivia, and Sebastian were all damn fun. And in a couple of cases, damned hot. Phew!
Again, though, the best part of seeing a show here is the setting. APT is an outdoor theater, up a hill, surrounded by trees. Walking up the hill in the woods, on a lamplit path from the picnic grounds to the theater, then seeing the clearing and the prairie. The theater area is 'hidden', so until you get to your seat you can't tell what anything really looks like. The 'lobby' has wood-chip floor and a small 'landing'. This landing is used for bug spray. Apply it here, then enter the theater, or spend the night swatting.
Over the course of a show the sun sets. We go from evening brightness to dark, with stars overhead. The whippoorwill calls (driving the audience crazy because he's so damn loud!!) and the owls hoot. Bats flutter through the theater, attracted by all the bugs--which are attracted by the lights. All around the stage is the woods; actors disappear into it, saunter out of it.
And when it's over, the lamplit path leads you down and away.
Last night I watched "The London Assurance", an 1840s comedy about fashion and manners. I expected to be indifferent; usually that stuff is dry and dull or loaded with childish humor. I loved it. Not only for the plummiest accents ever (haw!), but the actual story was good and fun. The actors were wonderful, playing the aging fop or the bouncing huntress or her doddering husband with great glee. (And the lawyer, Meddle, was excellent--padded butt and everything.)
Last week I saw "Twelfth Night", which has sparked some thinking about how Shakespeare views mockery. I'll ruminate on it further in another post, but to anyone who has seen it--how do _you_ regard Malvolio at the end, especially his "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you" threat, or the weak apology that Belch makes in saying that it was all done in jest, not for harm.
Plus Orsino, Viola, Olivia, and Sebastian were all damn fun. And in a couple of cases, damned hot. Phew!
Again, though, the best part of seeing a show here is the setting. APT is an outdoor theater, up a hill, surrounded by trees. Walking up the hill in the woods, on a lamplit path from the picnic grounds to the theater, then seeing the clearing and the prairie. The theater area is 'hidden', so until you get to your seat you can't tell what anything really looks like. The 'lobby' has wood-chip floor and a small 'landing'. This landing is used for bug spray. Apply it here, then enter the theater, or spend the night swatting.
Over the course of a show the sun sets. We go from evening brightness to dark, with stars overhead. The whippoorwill calls (driving the audience crazy because he's so damn loud!!) and the owls hoot. Bats flutter through the theater, attracted by all the bugs--which are attracted by the lights. All around the stage is the woods; actors disappear into it, saunter out of it.
And when it's over, the lamplit path leads you down and away.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}