Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Bodies, Babies and Big Boys (Oh My): Performance Number Fifteen
It was a bit of a crazy night for FourPlay! The 8:00 Duel of Fools included a special guest on Saturday, Wayne Brady, and so things were predictably a bit hectic in the lab. (On a sidenote, Wayne was an extremely generous and patient fellow, staying for a seemingly endless string of photos after the show which are now probably adorning MySpace sites everywhere!) We got off to a late start, around 10:20, but the house was sizable and supportive, and while it was unlikely from the get-go that we'd be out of there before midnight, I would posit that we kept the vast majority engaged and laughing throughout the evening.
Mark was in rare rapid-fire form providing a plethora of plot possibilities in his first position this evening. His character, Terry, worked as a car hop at Bob's Big Boy, alongside Arnelle (a Southern beauty school wannabe), Gillian (her long-lost twin separated at birth), and Kosak (an unseemly boss with secret desires). In the first moments of the show, we learnt that Terry's dead brother was being stored in the restaurant's freezer. Darren was a young man, Victor, in love with Robyn's sweet-girl Sandra, but stalked by Fenesha, an unstable young woman with an overactive imagination. Victor's father advised him atop a construction site to seek design in his life. Then Patty came along, a young woman with star-crossed roommates who invaded her space at every turn. Her only solace was Dern, the kind-hearted next-door-neighbor in her claustrophobic apartment complex. Lastly, I played Chad, a board-game obsessed man who found comfort in his basement of solitude. Plagued by his Renaissance Fair pickle-selling mother, and his pushy upstart brother, Chad's only comfort was his Lord of the Rings Risk game and imaginary friend, Sarah (who inexplicably spoke in a cockney dialect!)
Mark's Terry took the vote for the second act, and we set off into her rather convoluted mind. Along the way we experienced a fun "devil inside" duet, heard a rather whimsical song discussing various bridges in various locations, and learnt from Robyn's Gillian twin that the babies were separated at birth when one floated downstream while the other floated up! There was a lot of energy and playfulness in the act, and luckily the company's charm under stress (in particular that of Mark's Terry) made up for some rather inexplicable plot points that were left still hanging by the end of the night. Terry finally made the first step to well-being and recovery when she admitted to her boss and potential lover, Kosak, that she was completely unstable, and the performance found a relatively satisfying close as the once-fired Terry returned to work thanks to her generous friend, Arnelle.
There were many structural and dynamic mis-steps tonight, but luckily the drive of the show kept us moving. The major lesson of the night (to channel company member Jay Hopkins) is that simple is better. There was a barrage of possible plot points in both act one and act two (missing mother, dead brother, separated twins who know each other, a possible child by another...) - apart from rhyming in this overview, we struggled to find a meaningful way to put them together, and so the story felt a little less rewarding accordingly. It can be difficult to support and justify too many choices of this ilk, and subsequently, some were (perhaps necessarily) dropped from the story arc. I know that I'm personally reluctant to bring back random plot points unless I can be of assistance bringing them closer to resolution or meaning.
I'm hopeful we can bring the show back to center in terms of form and meaningful plot progression, but tonight's show had an odd but playful energy of its own that worked in its own oddball way.
Your jumbled-justifying Director, David C.
It was a bit of a crazy night for FourPlay! The 8:00 Duel of Fools included a special guest on Saturday, Wayne Brady, and so things were predictably a bit hectic in the lab. (On a sidenote, Wayne was an extremely generous and patient fellow, staying for a seemingly endless string of photos after the show which are now probably adorning MySpace sites everywhere!) We got off to a late start, around 10:20, but the house was sizable and supportive, and while it was unlikely from the get-go that we'd be out of there before midnight, I would posit that we kept the vast majority engaged and laughing throughout the evening.
Mark was in rare rapid-fire form providing a plethora of plot possibilities in his first position this evening. His character, Terry, worked as a car hop at Bob's Big Boy, alongside Arnelle (a Southern beauty school wannabe), Gillian (her long-lost twin separated at birth), and Kosak (an unseemly boss with secret desires). In the first moments of the show, we learnt that Terry's dead brother was being stored in the restaurant's freezer. Darren was a young man, Victor, in love with Robyn's sweet-girl Sandra, but stalked by Fenesha, an unstable young woman with an overactive imagination. Victor's father advised him atop a construction site to seek design in his life. Then Patty came along, a young woman with star-crossed roommates who invaded her space at every turn. Her only solace was Dern, the kind-hearted next-door-neighbor in her claustrophobic apartment complex. Lastly, I played Chad, a board-game obsessed man who found comfort in his basement of solitude. Plagued by his Renaissance Fair pickle-selling mother, and his pushy upstart brother, Chad's only comfort was his Lord of the Rings Risk game and imaginary friend, Sarah (who inexplicably spoke in a cockney dialect!)Mark's Terry took the vote for the second act, and we set off into her rather convoluted mind. Along the way we experienced a fun "devil inside" duet, heard a rather whimsical song discussing various bridges in various locations, and learnt from Robyn's Gillian twin that the babies were separated at birth when one floated downstream while the other floated up! There was a lot of energy and playfulness in the act, and luckily the company's charm under stress (in particular that of Mark's Terry) made up for some rather inexplicable plot points that were left still hanging by the end of the night. Terry finally made the first step to well-being and recovery when she admitted to her boss and potential lover, Kosak, that she was completely unstable, and the performance found a relatively satisfying close as the once-fired Terry returned to work thanks to her generous friend, Arnelle.
There were many structural and dynamic mis-steps tonight, but luckily the drive of the show kept us moving. The major lesson of the night (to channel company member Jay Hopkins) is that simple is better. There was a barrage of possible plot points in both act one and act two (missing mother, dead brother, separated twins who know each other, a possible child by another...) - apart from rhyming in this overview, we struggled to find a meaningful way to put them together, and so the story felt a little less rewarding accordingly. It can be difficult to support and justify too many choices of this ilk, and subsequently, some were (perhaps necessarily) dropped from the story arc. I know that I'm personally reluctant to bring back random plot points unless I can be of assistance bringing them closer to resolution or meaning.
I'm hopeful we can bring the show back to center in terms of form and meaningful plot progression, but tonight's show had an odd but playful energy of its own that worked in its own oddball way.
Your jumbled-justifying Director, David C.
