Trilogy of Medieval Women
I went to see Trilogy of Medieval Women already expecting to be frustrated at not understanding what it was about. I probably would have sat by the English translation side, had I known there was one. I probably also would have read my program before the play began, had I realized that there was an explanation of the action inside it. The point of saying all this is that I spent more time looking at Trilogy of Medieval Women as a production itself and less like an entertainment piece. I found myself “looking at” the play rather than becoming engrossed in the story.
With any production containing a small cast and each actor playing multiple parts, the audience gets the benefit of getting a better understanding of each actor’s acting style. The most memorable part of the production for me was watching the transition from one part of the trilogy to the next. Obviously, an actor playing multiple parts has the ability to use costume changes to help them get into each character. However, the actresses in this play also used another variety of techniques. I noticed that when Antonia Bueno was transitioning from the first story to the second, she even changed her costume the way you would have expected her character to change. It was these clear cut differences in body language between the various characters that I remember most from Trilogy of Medieval Women.
posted by Rebecca @ 7:41 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I agree with you about going in and not being able to understand what the play was about, and the language barrier was even worse...I even sat in the English section. I think its really interesting that you noticed the body language, even with the distraction of Spanish
I am curious to know what you got out of this "looking at" experience. Do you find it as important as knowing exactly what is going on, understand the metaphores, etc. Was that the point of Kirk sending us to a play that we couldn't understand. Exactly. I agree with you that the transitions were fascinating in the sence that they were so clear and evident (hard to pull off in such a small area with the same actresses). I also found it amazing that so much relied on tone. Even though I couldn't understand a word, I could tell immediatley when they broke character.
I like how you used the word engrossed, because that is what I thought of this performance, gross. I completely tuned out after the first fifteen minutes because I had no idea what the actresses were talking about. I understand the purpose was for us to look at the production and not through it. Yes, this would be difficult to do if it was in English and we spent the majority of the time subconsciously analyzing the plot. However, I would have much rather seen a mime's performance because it would have not been so confusing.
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