Welcome to the Wicked Stage

This is the Wicked Stage, a blog of theatre reviews by the students of the Watershed School. What happened was this: I was approached by Jason Berv, who runs the school, to create a week-long theatre class for students, using my perspective as a playwright, actor, teacher, and theatre critic. I decided to have the class focus on theatre from the point of view of a critic. I used the model of nytheatre.com, where I where I was a senior reviewer for several years, as the template for the kind of reviews we would write. So each day the students and I talk about theatre and reviewing and all the elements that comprise a play, and each night we go to a different theatre, take backstage tours, attend shows, and have talk backs with the cast after the show. So far, we've seen Mariela in the Desert at the Denver Center Theatre Company, Hamlet- Prince of Darkness at the National Theatre Conservatory, and Opus at the Curious Theatre. Tonight, we see our last show, Nine, at the Arvada Center. In the blogs that follow, you'll see the reviews that the students have written about the shows.
Enjoy.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Opus Review by Kamryn THE EXTREME

4/22/10
Opus Review

Opus, an entertaining and witty story by Micheal Hollinger, directed by Chip Walton and showing at the Curious Theatre, does not fail to entertain the audience. The play is about a string quartet (as explained in the play a quartet is "A good violinist, a bad violinist, someone who used to be a violinist and someone who is not a violinist) that is arguing and having much drama about which musical number they will play for their presidential command performance that will be televised in front of over 15,000,000 people; they are also debating who to hire to replace Dorian, their old violist. Kary Delaney plays the starring role- or protagonist- Grace, who ends up getting hired as the replacement for the quartet's former member, who has suddenly gone missing. Although everyone knew that she was the perfect replacement, Grace still wants an audition for the Pittsburgh orchestra. Elliot, the lead violinist, is basically "A type-A ass" as described by Josh Robinson, the actor who plays him. Elliot was going out with Dorian who after a fight ran away (yes this play does include some homosexuality). This play is an exceptional example of how theatre can be funny, dramatic and shocking at the same time. Micheal Hollinger wrote this show beautifully, inserting awkward silences where everyone- even the audience- is quiet for at least 20 seconds while the actress (Grace) has to make a life changing decision at the end of the play.
The set is simple, making it not distracting from the show but adding to it. If you look really carefully the back drop changes colors to be the same as the mood of the scene (awkward, angry, sad, playful etc...). The props are a few instruments and chairs. The instruments are un-playable so the actors do not play anything but have to sync their motion of strumming and plucking the strings with the sound from the sound booth. Even though this play can get confusing some times because it switches throughout time lines throughout the play, this wonderful and witty performance does not fail to entertain the audience and when they do switch times, they make sure to get the audience back on track so the audience can know what they are doing. I highly recommend this play so grab your purse and support a local theatre.

No comments:

Post a Comment