These benches aren't made for sitting

Posted by jukkahoo

Went to see the Wyrd Sisters by the Finn-Brit Players. Very funny, if not side-splittingly so. Fionna was excellently gythaoggish with her gestures and delightfully naughty nudgenugewinkwink'nesses, Bruce the King was brilliant, Mathilda the-Vesa-relative was so cute I easily fell in love with her and a bunch of other actors were proficient with their chosen profession hobby. The play itself could've been a bit more structured since all those short scens were really more suited for, lets' say screen(?) than for stage. Sari had the idea of splitting the stage in two and I think I could've seen that as a viable option, since the only character that really did any moving was the Fool. He was good too. And oh yes, the Queen, with her enounciation! Zoe was way solid! And the young prince on the stage! That WAS funny.

A good twoplus hours for less than a tenner. Still a show or two to go, have a looksee, they might still have a seat or two left. Our showing was full but we managed to book our seats the day before.

And yeah, Death wasn't a hoot as he should've been...

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?"

Oh, nothing surely... I mean, I think you may have been given too little to work with... Maybe a bigger role in the future?

"OH, OK THEN. JUST REMEMBER THAT MY SCHEDULE IS PRETTY BUSY, BUT NOT THAT BUSY THAT I COULDN'T DO A LITTLE DETOUR AT YOUR PLACE IF I HEAR YOU CAN'T KEEP YOUR BIG MOUTH SHUT ONCE IN A WHILE. "

*silent*

Comments

[Sari]

It was very entertaining. Not as good as a play as the previous FinnBrit production I saw, Beautiful Bodies, but very entertaining none-the-less. Jokes worked, and acting was generally quite proficient. Props especially to withces who were all great, as were the duke and the duchess.

The timing suffered from the very short scenes and set changes, and there are some dramaturgical weaknessess in the play itself: there is not enough info for people who have not read the book, and some scenes are just weak or end weakly. As Jukka says, considering the space, one way of keeping the pace could have been to split the stage.

Even so, it was great fun. Even the less than comfy chairs did not really disturb the immersion into athearical illusion. And Nanny Ogg sang "wizard's staff has a nob in the end" Yay!

In other news: I have carpal tunnel and a flu. I hate the splints you have to wear and the runny nose isn't fun either.

[Fionna]

Thanks for the (qualified) compliments! And Matilda was just saying that she never gets random compliments from Finns... :-)

The problem with splitting the stage in two is with the lights in that venue. There are only four of the "main" lights (profile spots), and it is impossible to get only one half of the stage dark, you might have noticed there was huge overspill during the one scene we did split the stage. I'm not at all convinced that another scene being setup in a "darkened" half of the stage wouldn't have completely distracted the audience.

I blame the adaptation, myself. The only way I could have seen getting around the problem was to use the same set in every scene, and have a three-sided flat painted to indicate where the scene was taking place. But there would still have been downtime for the dungeon scenes and the demon scene.