For our second show we had a special treat; a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, on Midsummer Night. Once again, we went with our friend Rachel to the highest point in Portland. A park where neither Wendy or Amanda had been, but luckily Rachel had. Sometimes the hardest part of going to Shakespeare In The Park, is finding the park. (Side note: for one show this summer Amanda and Rachel and our friend Ruby hiked for 45 minutes before finding the show, figuring out later that it was just two blocks from where they had parked the car.)
This show, in Council Crest, was being staged by The Original Practice Theater (www.opsfest.org). At OPT they do not practice before the shows and it is just like when Shakespeare was first being produced in the 1600s. Each actor is given only their part and their cues, on a little rolled up script. This is where the term "roll" came from. Apparently the actors decide that day who is going to do each roll, though some actors keep their same rolls production after production. And clearly the women who were playing Hermia and Helena had played those parts before, they knew their lines awfully well.
Since it was on the Solstice, the show started at ten o'clock at night to a very good sized crowd of very enthusiastic Shakespeare lovers and a lot of hungry mosquitos. We arrived early enough to see the fight and dance choreography being worked out before the show, as well as a spectacular sunset from the most beautiful view in Portland.
The show itself was a "rollicking good time". The audience had been primed preshow to feel free to talk, eat, laugh, boo, interact with the actors as they saw fit. At OPT shows, there is always a referee who interferes whenever the actors get lost and helps to get everyone on the same roll. (Pun intended!) The referee is like an onstage prompter and he or she will stop the show if there is environmental interference (a plane, train, or drunken party bus) that could make it hard to hear the actors. This show was particularly fun for Wendy because she knew the referee. His name was Andrew and he had worked with her on Grant High School's production of The Sound Of Music.
Amanda would rate the venue a 7. The only drawback being getting lost on the way there and on the way home. Council Crest is not a nice place to be lost on at one in the morning. We saw a rabbit, a coyote and possibly Bigfoot before we found the main road back to civilization. She would rate the production to be an 8 as well because this was the best Bottom that she has ever seen. She liked that he relished in the roll. Part of her rating goes to the "Memorable factor", because the company had set up lights that went out in the last 20 minutes of the show. She liked that instead of stopping the show to fix the lights, they kept going and finished the play to the light of the audience's cell phones and the occasional flashlight. "It is one production that I will not soon forget." she says.
Wendy would rate the venue to be a 9 because even though she does not particularly like nature, she liked seeing the sunset. She also liked that there were enough people sitting around her who were wearing bug spray so she was not eaten alive by mosquitoes. Wendy felt that the production deserved a 9 as well because all around the actors did a fantastic job and as an audience member she was not able to tell that they had not practiced (with the exception of the dance and fight scenes).
No comments:
Post a Comment