Seventeenth Doll - This IS A Reveiw
Sun, 13 Aug 2000, 02:04 pmLeah Maher20 posts in thread
Seventeenth Doll - This IS A Reveiw
Sun, 13 Aug 2000, 02:04 pmI'm sure this wil not be the only reveiw for this GRADS production but here is my two cents.
I must admit to not looking forward to seeing "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll" at the Dolphin last night. Being the philistine that I am, I had heard of the play but never read it, I assumed it would be boring by virtue of being Australian and not modern. (I don't know why I had these asumptions and am now quite ashamed of them.) Well I was pleasently surpirised. From the outset it held my attention, which is difficult to do when the first scene is quite long and consists of two characters chatting. I contributed this to the amazing performances, particularly by Tracey Wolridge (I'm sure I've spelled that wrong), but my companion was blown away by the writing. He said that the reason GRADS always put on a good show is that they always chose beautifully written plays. In this instance he was right. It's a fairly simple story of some fairly simple people but from start to finish they carry you along with them, in their simple lives. When they yell, you jump, when they cry, you're sad and when then laugh, you laugh too.
In terms of laughng the lady who played Emma was an absolute scream. Everytime she walked on stage you could feel the audience smile, waiting to see what she was going to do next. One of the group I went with (Rent-A-Laugh, reasonable rates, contact the President of the ITA!!) started laughing before she even spoke.
My few complaints thoguh, were with the technical side of things. I felt that the sound effects were intrusive and needed to be timed better. At one point I could not hear a very important and emotional speach beacause of the loud and unecessarily long sound of a car driving off, I swear it got from Melbourne to Bendigo before it died out. I also felt that the piano playing was distracting in a play where the charcters and dialouge were so natural. Was it possible to angle the piano so we could not see the players hands??
Well done to David for picking such a fabulous play and a brilliant cast. And for providing an entertaining interval game! When you get to the Dolphin, try to pick the director out of the crowd, I guartentee those of you who saw Assassins won't be able to do it. I would have said my personal congrat's David, if I knew the Kossak in the corner was you!!
I must admit to not looking forward to seeing "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll" at the Dolphin last night. Being the philistine that I am, I had heard of the play but never read it, I assumed it would be boring by virtue of being Australian and not modern. (I don't know why I had these asumptions and am now quite ashamed of them.) Well I was pleasently surpirised. From the outset it held my attention, which is difficult to do when the first scene is quite long and consists of two characters chatting. I contributed this to the amazing performances, particularly by Tracey Wolridge (I'm sure I've spelled that wrong), but my companion was blown away by the writing. He said that the reason GRADS always put on a good show is that they always chose beautifully written plays. In this instance he was right. It's a fairly simple story of some fairly simple people but from start to finish they carry you along with them, in their simple lives. When they yell, you jump, when they cry, you're sad and when then laugh, you laugh too.
In terms of laughng the lady who played Emma was an absolute scream. Everytime she walked on stage you could feel the audience smile, waiting to see what she was going to do next. One of the group I went with (Rent-A-Laugh, reasonable rates, contact the President of the ITA!!) started laughing before she even spoke.
My few complaints thoguh, were with the technical side of things. I felt that the sound effects were intrusive and needed to be timed better. At one point I could not hear a very important and emotional speach beacause of the loud and unecessarily long sound of a car driving off, I swear it got from Melbourne to Bendigo before it died out. I also felt that the piano playing was distracting in a play where the charcters and dialouge were so natural. Was it possible to angle the piano so we could not see the players hands??
Well done to David for picking such a fabulous play and a brilliant cast. And for providing an entertaining interval game! When you get to the Dolphin, try to pick the director out of the crowd, I guartentee those of you who saw Assassins won't be able to do it. I would have said my personal congrat's David, if I knew the Kossak in the corner was you!!
RE: Besmirching the uber-techies
Wed, 30 Aug 2000, 06:16 pmHi Malcolm
> OK I admit the first thing I do on entering a theatre is
> to check out the lighting grid and speculate on the
> colour gels... doesn't everyone?
Do i hear someone busily typing away suggesting another poll?
> If a character states "That sounds like my taxi." I am
> not going to dispute it. Why should I?
I'll side with Malcolm on this one. Not that i never want to hear or see anything approaching realism/naturalism on stage. It's just that as Malcolm suggests, there are plenty of other things that theatre does better.
That said, on the evening i attended the aforementioned performance the sfx went off without a hitch and formed a seamless whole with the rest of what was a very effective production. The focus was where it should have been - on the drama unfolding on stage.
I think it's worth noting that it can be a tough call for a director to cut intrusive effects and business late in rehearsal - or even early in performance. I know there are a couple of people who, six years on, still remember an eleventh hour decision i made to cut slide projection from a show. It might have almost worked. It may have got better with tweaking during the run. Ultimately though, i had to make a call on whether i felt the potential distraction was going to be worth the additional effect. I cut it all out before the final dress rehearsal.
I cut work that had taken several people tens of hours of painstaking research and hard labour. Understandably, my decision was unpopular with the people who had done the work.
But I don't think the audience minded. In fact, David, you'll probably remember taking several standing ovations.
:-)
Cheers
Grant
> OK I admit the first thing I do on entering a theatre is
> to check out the lighting grid and speculate on the
> colour gels... doesn't everyone?
Do i hear someone busily typing away suggesting another poll?
> If a character states "That sounds like my taxi." I am
> not going to dispute it. Why should I?
I'll side with Malcolm on this one. Not that i never want to hear or see anything approaching realism/naturalism on stage. It's just that as Malcolm suggests, there are plenty of other things that theatre does better.
That said, on the evening i attended the aforementioned performance the sfx went off without a hitch and formed a seamless whole with the rest of what was a very effective production. The focus was where it should have been - on the drama unfolding on stage.
I think it's worth noting that it can be a tough call for a director to cut intrusive effects and business late in rehearsal - or even early in performance. I know there are a couple of people who, six years on, still remember an eleventh hour decision i made to cut slide projection from a show. It might have almost worked. It may have got better with tweaking during the run. Ultimately though, i had to make a call on whether i felt the potential distraction was going to be worth the additional effect. I cut it all out before the final dress rehearsal.
I cut work that had taken several people tens of hours of painstaking research and hard labour. Understandably, my decision was unpopular with the people who had done the work.
But I don't think the audience minded. In fact, David, you'll probably remember taking several standing ovations.
:-)
Cheers
Grant
- ···
- ···
- ···
- ···
- ···
- ···