I just went to see Seton Hill University's Production of As You Like It. I was a little apprehensive to watch it with an audience full of High Schoolers. Yet the High Schoolers weren't the one's who were falling asleep in the seat beside and behind me. I'm all for professors recommending their students see the performances, but if it results in students sleeping through the entire play then what do the students get out of it except a two and half hour nap?
I have no clue how anyone can sleep through shakespeare. Especially a comedy as well done and thought out as As You Like it. The colors were vibrant and it translated from the costume to the richness of the actors/actresses voices. Among my favorite characters has to be the part that Matthew Starry played named Touchstone. He was a regular Harry Anderson (a comedian who does magic).
I was lost in the costumes. Whenever I go to any play I study the costumes. I don't know why I do that, but it's my favorite part of a production. Since I was younger I loved watching movies because of the costumes.
I would love to be Edith Head, who made costumes for Universal Studios. If you ever saw Rear window with James Stewart and Grace Kelly it was Head who did the costume designing for that movie and my favorite dress of all time.
It's the costumes and Make-up that is the icing on the cake as it were. This semester I am even taking Costume Technology where I get to know the ins and outs of my favorite part of the theater. I got to witness first hand how some of the more elaborate costumes "came to life" In my costume tech class I learned how to age someone up to 70 years with just make-up. Joshua Knapp's two characters in the production,show just how wonderful a tool can be.
Make-up and beautiful costumes aside, a stage production is nothing without actors. Without great actors who breath life into otherwise dusty and old words which have little to no meaning to modern audiences. The mere inflection of a word or phrase can turn make or break a scene. This is why I loved Starry's character so much. In one scene he describes the different "degrees" and he does so at a very rapid pace. He was truly a "colorful" character.
Music also helped pull the audience in. Of course I am a sucker for a well placed song. No matter how corny. The end of the show... well that was tied the show together. I would tell you, but that would ruin the surprise. :-D I'll give you a hint though.
Posted by AllisonWhitcomb at February 17, 2004 02:49 PM