Good To Read, Bad To See

Subject: Good To Read, Bad To See

I walked into the theatre expecting to see a decent play on Thursday night, boy was I disappointed. I think the fact that we had read the play ahead of time had a baring on that, because I had already had a preconceived notion of what it was going to be like, and it wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, there were a few good things about the production, but all in all, I dod not enjoy it.
I can honestly say that one of the things that I did not like about the play was the singing. My thought is if you are going to have a play where the characters sing, then you need to have actors and actresses that can sing as well. A few of the actors could sing, but the one in particular that I am thinking of, did not act very well at all. I think that the biggest problem I had with the play lies not in the way that it was played out but inside the actors themselves.
I felt that one actor in particular did not act well at all. I felt that this person was very uncomfortable on stage and that they just wanted to get it done and over with. This might have been true, but to make it a good performance, the audience should never know that.
However, I felt that the music was a very nice touch. I think that in my head that was the kind of music that needed to be played as you read the play. I applaud not only the composer, but also the performer, that was not an easy thing to do.
I felt that the most powerful character in the play was not Yerma, I felt that it was the old woman, played by Kathleen Campbell. I do realize that she has been on stage many more times than all of the students but I also know that in order for a play to do well, Yerma must be the most powerful character. In all reality, I just felt that the acting and the singing brought the production down so much that I was unable to enjoy the performance.
On top of all of this, the play made no sense. The audience around me didn’t understand it either. In fact one student sitting next to me right after the play said, “That was the weirdest freaking play that I have ever seen!” I think that speaks for itself. I thought that reading it and understanding it was doable, but I know that if I had not read it before had that I would have been as lost as the other members of the audience sitting around me. The way that the characters spoke made it hard to understand, though I know that this was the way that Lorca wrote it, it still does not make it any easier to understand.
All in all, the play to read was good. However, the play to watch, in the case of the performance at Austin College, was very disappointing. I still to this day am not sure what to say about this play other than I just did not like it.
--Michael