Last night's installment of our Reader's Theatre series was a show called 'Night, Mother, by playwrite Marsha Norman. It is our dramaturg's favorite script in the world and, seeing it performed live last night, I can see why.
An incredible two-woman story of a an adult daughter who announces to her mother (with whom she lives) that she will kill herself "tonight," it is nearly an hour and a half of tense, personal dialogue building to an inevitable conclusion that everyone watching is hoping the mother can somehow avert, but ultimately cannot. Heart-rending is an understatement and at the end, to use a chiche, "there was not a dry eye in the house." It was really quite incredible, and it actually resulted in our company getting our first "Standing O." Then over to Rix for drinks, thankfully. Anyway, read Valerie's great and (as always) uniquely insightful take on the performance here.
Powerful stuff, this theatre. I just get it now; the whole shared experience with the audience, the visceral reality of it all; so much more than I ever did in my acting as a youth.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
7 comments:
That sounds great.
It was. Only thing was, the crowd wasn't very large.
Since these aren't productions that we're building up over a long period of time, we're relying a lot on a very few "layers" of promotion. The "built in" audience that will come out and see us every time, or most of the time, is really quite small.
Presumably this is also a level of commitment that isn't do or die from the performers point of view, which if sustained over a number of years would allow the crowd to grow organically.
Big productions require you to hit it out of the park, while reader's theater hopefully allows you to manufacture runs. In the end, you can still win.
Word verification (spock). Really.
Nice on the word verification! (and appropriate, considering the commentor)
You're pretty much right on. That's exactly how our Artistic Director sees it. He even cautions against "overpromotion" of these shows; however, I'd have to say that of all our problems, that's hardly one of them.
Your blog keeps me riveted!
Glad to hear things are going great with the Theatre Group.
Thanks man. And thanks.
That sounds wonderful!
And Spock!!!!
Post a Comment