![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The words alone
Dec. 1st, 2009 10:44 amI got to see an amazing evening of theater last night. A gaggle of folks from Theatre@First and my office went to the Boston Center for the Arts in the South End. We saw a staged reading of two Thornton Wilder one-act plays:
The Happy Journey from Trenton to Camden
The Long Christmas Dinner
One of my colleagues from Harvard, Rebekah Maggor, directed and acted in them both.
The artistic director of Commonwealth Shakespeare, Steve Maler, opened the evening with a brief talk about their mission, and talked about their summer shows on the Common, where they perform for 80,000 people. Wow. He introduced Rebekah, who talked about Thornton Wilder, that most of us know from "Our Town."
They had nine actors, music stands and chairs and scripts in black binders. An actor read the stage directions. It was incredible how involving it was. They used their voices, facial expressions and a few gestures to take you along on a car ride through NJ in 1931 and then 90 years worth of Christmas dinners in 35 minutes. I definitely traveled the road and through time with them, laughing and sniffling and thinking about the deeper meaning beyond the words. I don't usually sit near the front in the theater, but it was good to be in the second row to get the full effect.
There was a one-page photocopied program, with bios on the inside, info about the plays and cast list on the front, and info about Commonwealth Shakespeare, special thanks and membership info on the back.
It was great to see this work, and how they did it. It was also a special opportunity to give the TaF folks an idea of what our new series of staged readings could be like. It inspires me to help share the power of theater works we probably wouldn't stage but still want to present so people can revel in the words, and the talents of our actors and directors.
The Happy Journey from Trenton to Camden
The Long Christmas Dinner
One of my colleagues from Harvard, Rebekah Maggor, directed and acted in them both.
The artistic director of Commonwealth Shakespeare, Steve Maler, opened the evening with a brief talk about their mission, and talked about their summer shows on the Common, where they perform for 80,000 people. Wow. He introduced Rebekah, who talked about Thornton Wilder, that most of us know from "Our Town."
They had nine actors, music stands and chairs and scripts in black binders. An actor read the stage directions. It was incredible how involving it was. They used their voices, facial expressions and a few gestures to take you along on a car ride through NJ in 1931 and then 90 years worth of Christmas dinners in 35 minutes. I definitely traveled the road and through time with them, laughing and sniffling and thinking about the deeper meaning beyond the words. I don't usually sit near the front in the theater, but it was good to be in the second row to get the full effect.
There was a one-page photocopied program, with bios on the inside, info about the plays and cast list on the front, and info about Commonwealth Shakespeare, special thanks and membership info on the back.
It was great to see this work, and how they did it. It was also a special opportunity to give the TaF folks an idea of what our new series of staged readings could be like. It inspires me to help share the power of theater works we probably wouldn't stage but still want to present so people can revel in the words, and the talents of our actors and directors.
