Over the weekend I attended the School of Theatre’s production of The Beggar’s Opera. Having read the play for a class last semester, I was very excited to see it on its feet. My excitement was not unwarranted, as the performance was extremely good and I proceeded to tell everyone I saw during the remainder of the weekend to make sure they made time to see it.
From an acting standpoint, the huge amount of work the cast did in order to carry such demanding roles was evident in every scene. I thought the acting was tremendous, and I commend every single one of them for their performances. Only a couple of the actors seemed to have interpretations of their characters that did not make sense to me, but even so, these interpretations did not detract from the overall excellence of the show. Similarly, a couple of the actors’ accents were not as rich and convincing as the rest, but again, this did not take away from the performance as a whole.
From a directing standpoint, the play was staged brilliantly. It was so creatively done, using all kinds of levels facilitated by the architecture of the theatre and the set. The director very obviously extracted the most from his cast, considering the fact that all of them displayed their flexibility and personal strengths in the grotesque ways they moved, reacted, and even changed the set pieces and props. Maybe it was so amazing to me because I know the cast members as friends and colleagues, but the transformations they underwent were astonishing.
From a singing standpoint, I must admit that the men’s vocals outshined those of the women. HOWEVER, and that is a very big however, I do not think this is a result of lack of talent. I think it has much more to do with the fact that the women’s songs were about two octaves higher than necessary, which is a fault of the score itself and not of the actors’ abilities. It was obvious to me despite the ridiculous notes they were forced to hit that, had they been able to sing in a key audible to humans rather than just dogs, they would have had lovely musical theatre-style voices.
From a design standpoint, the use of a thrust stage (in which the audience sits on three sides of the action, leaving one wall for set) was a very wise decision. It allowed the cast to have a flow to their movement that looked different but still dynamic from all sides. The makeup was ingenious – I have to say that I have never seen teeth more effectively blacked out and dirtied than in this show, even in movies. The costumes, too, were appropriate for the period and contained the perfect amount of gaudiness to show distinctions among classes and professions.
I must say that my Thursday night was well spent attending such a wonderful production of The Beggar’s Opera. Congratulations to the cast and crew, you all did a marvelous job!
From an acting standpoint, the huge amount of work the cast did in order to carry such demanding roles was evident in every scene. I thought the acting was tremendous, and I commend every single one of them for their performances. Only a couple of the actors seemed to have interpretations of their characters that did not make sense to me, but even so, these interpretations did not detract from the overall excellence of the show. Similarly, a couple of the actors’ accents were not as rich and convincing as the rest, but again, this did not take away from the performance as a whole.
From a directing standpoint, the play was staged brilliantly. It was so creatively done, using all kinds of levels facilitated by the architecture of the theatre and the set. The director very obviously extracted the most from his cast, considering the fact that all of them displayed their flexibility and personal strengths in the grotesque ways they moved, reacted, and even changed the set pieces and props. Maybe it was so amazing to me because I know the cast members as friends and colleagues, but the transformations they underwent were astonishing.
From a singing standpoint, I must admit that the men’s vocals outshined those of the women. HOWEVER, and that is a very big however, I do not think this is a result of lack of talent. I think it has much more to do with the fact that the women’s songs were about two octaves higher than necessary, which is a fault of the score itself and not of the actors’ abilities. It was obvious to me despite the ridiculous notes they were forced to hit that, had they been able to sing in a key audible to humans rather than just dogs, they would have had lovely musical theatre-style voices.
From a design standpoint, the use of a thrust stage (in which the audience sits on three sides of the action, leaving one wall for set) was a very wise decision. It allowed the cast to have a flow to their movement that looked different but still dynamic from all sides. The makeup was ingenious – I have to say that I have never seen teeth more effectively blacked out and dirtied than in this show, even in movies. The costumes, too, were appropriate for the period and contained the perfect amount of gaudiness to show distinctions among classes and professions.
I must say that my Thursday night was well spent attending such a wonderful production of The Beggar’s Opera. Congratulations to the cast and crew, you all did a marvelous job!
3 comments:
I wish that I could have gone to see this production. John Gay’s work is a pivotal work in the development of Opera (and western music for that matter). This work can be categorized as comic opera, having come out of the Italian, Opera Buffa traditon. The influence of say, Pergolesi’s operatic writing on Gay’s piece can be seen in presence of the natural vocal style, fewer characters, repeated melodic fragments, doubling at unisons, highly repetitive and fairly static harmonic motion, and the use of the simple da capo form in solo arias. The Beggar’s Opera is one of the first operas written in the vernacular, which explains the mixing of classes within the character roles. One can appreciate the resultant simple and direct strophic style. These pre-texted ballads synthesize spoken dialogue (as opposed to recitative) with the arias.
It sounds like the students were able to make this performance very accessible. Having not been commissioned for court or nobility, this opera belonged to all the social classes. Hopefully another opera company will stage this production soon. Glad to hear the USC theatre students are up to good work! Thanks for the review!
It was definitely one of the best performances I have seen at USC School of Theatre. Threepenny Opera, the adaptation of Beggar’s Opera performed in my freshman year, is also on my list. I guess I’m obsessed with the grotesque style and how it visually, almost perfectly portrays people of the “down” and “under” in the society. I like how you analyze the production from different standpoints, and you try to speak your personal feelings critically and fairly. The production was so striking as it tried everyway to keep the audience inside the world it created, which was fierce and tempting exactly like the actor staring at you, sticking her tongue out and drawing you with the greedy smile on her face. The set helped to audiences’ feeling of involvement. Also the actors’ placement was such a great contribution. They were simply everywhere and there was not a corner in the Scene Dock Theatre they could not reach. All these factors contributed to the excellent production that I didn’t feel a bit of tiredness.
Thanks for the great review Amanda! Break a leg on the rest of “DON JUAN”!!
I'm afraid I would have understood this blog a bit better if a) there had been a brief blurb on what "The Beggar's Opera" is about and b) some more concrete examples of which songs and which characters' costumes affected you most. That aside, the bases have been well-covered. I do recall working with actors who have had strange and unexpected interpretations of their parts, but I guess that goes with any show. That may also be a directorial fault if the interpretation is outlandish enough.
What did the set look like? This production sounds so exciting that I wish I could at least envision it. You know, I've never actually seen a performance on a thrust stage. It's a terrible tragedy. I'm glad that this aspect of the production was actually mentioned, since stage shape really does have a definite role in shaping a production. Thrust stages in particular immerse the audience more effectively in the goings-on onstage as the worlds seem to intersect in 3-D. Good grief, I miss it. Anyway, I'll have to start checking out more plays, such as yours this weekend. My only recommendation for future reviews would be some more information for those of us who, alas, were unable to attend the production. Laters!
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