A Critical Analysis Of A Critique Of Thread City

In both live and filmed performances, the performances will often differ in small ways from the plays. Whether this is due to the actors, the set, or to a change in the story itself, these often small differences can have great impacts on the finished product. In Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” play and “Our Town” performance there are various differences and similarities between the two. These come out in how well the performance follows the play, in the actors interpretations of their parts, in the scripts, props, and in the setting. The “Our Town” performance viewed in class was one of the more faithful of performances in regards to following the play.

11. Point out some moments in the play when the playwright conveys much to the audience without dialogue

On February 26th 2016, I went out with my friend to saw this event. It was the first time of my life to be in such production. I was not a fan of theaters. I thought they are boring. Now, my mind has changed because the play was amazing. So, on the next day,

They followed the steps on how to get an audience attention when telling a story or doing a presentation. First, they told us what they are going to do which was to kill the king, and how they are going to do it, and lastly why they did it. One thing I found really successful was even though the play was really comical the actors were able to keep the storyline in a way that I could understand. The show kept me on edge, it kept me wondering what craziness is going to happen next. Although the show was really comical it also had a lot of life lessons that I learned. Firstly, one thing I learned from watching the performance is that” Once a traitor always a traitor.” In the show, there was a guy that plotted a coup with a soldier so they could overthrow the king so that soldier “ “captain Bondure” could take over. In the end, the traitor ended up betraying the soldier and stole the crown. The second thing I learned from this performance is never let anything bring you down no matter what the circumstances are. In the case of Ubu Roi, the princess lost her dad. Then her mom died right in her hands while they were on the run hiding in a cage. She never gave up on her idea to revenge her families’ death.

They would be eager to understand what is going on. There were no special effects so listening carefully to the characters was the only way you would understand what was happening. This made it a good idea to open the play during the night. So you in the audience would get the feel of whispers, people sneaking around etc. They did not have good costumes

Our performance was effective because of how clear and straight forward it was, even though it was mime. The audience where aware of the setting and it being around a dinner table due to the two chairs being opposite each other with a ‘table’ in the middle, the audience where aware of which characters were which as we characterised the roles very well. For example, Anna was very giggly and hyper, contrasting Catherine’s formal demeanour and John and Maureen were a typical married couple. We used physical theatre for the oven and the stairs, which was stylistic and different for the audience to see, this fit in with the overall style of the lay as most of the stage directions involve physical theatre as in ‘The Brussels Sprouts Scene’ “the whole of this scene is performed stylistically with people frantically changing roles, playing scenery, properties and characters”. The use of thought tracking helped the audience to figure out which character is which. The use of gestures was also used, Maureen slapped Anna’s hand instantly giving away her very paternal and motherly role as Maureen. Our scene was effective also because the crackers being pulled apart in itself is representing the family being pulled apart for many reasons not just the economy, but the toll Catherine’s anorexia takes on the whole Dunbar family in different ways. Looking at Bleu’s group I could definitely see how they marked the moment: the tempo

I will be honest with you I had a lot of trouble enjoying the play, like I said the dialect gave me trouble, plus my seats were not that great. I did however like the movie quite a bit, but I realize I am a product of a different generation as well. I have been brought up around TV and movies rather than plays

The movie gives a vivid description of the characters and the actors have the accents to really drive that character. When watching the movie, one may see what the clothing looked like. They can see how people used to dress and what was acceptable or commonly wore. The play gives descriptions of the characters, however people can not visually picture them.

Our Town was done very differently than the other plays I have read and I thought it was interesting. I liked that the stage manager broke the fourth wall multiple times and spoke to the audience, creating more interaction with them and keeping people entertained and drawn in. They also placed actors in the audience for a scene. I think this is a

The artistic purpose was to properly immerse the audience into Shakespeare's play and to bring the words on the script to life for those who are merely just learning and reading the plays. They Passado Action Theatre was able to achieve this by the emotions they had poured into the plays as if they themselves were the characters. Not only did the actors play the character but they became the character. An excellent example would be Elly Calero when she played as Olivia; screaming hysterically for her husband and a spot that was on her hand. Her face showed the frustration and her body language with her shoulders slouched over and her hands making a mess of her hair along with the shaking of disbelief during the act. This was just one of the many parts of this amazing acted put forth by the actors and actresses. Another

The director wanted to convey the strong and relevant message of the play to the audience, therefore naturalism became essential. As a verbatim piece, the director aimed to avoid overacting and stay true to the characters original intention. Therefore, when adding characterisation, I was careful about being too extravagant with my blocking, body language and facial expressions. For example, Romaine Patterson delivers a powerful monologue, supporting LGBT rights 'I decided that someone needed to stand toe to toe with this guy and show the differences.' The director and I discussed only adding minor movement for Romaine, to avoid overacting. I worked with the director on the timing of my movement. In the last section of my monologue, I was required to wear angel wings and raise them when saying 'And we're calling it Angel Action.' Therefore, we rehearsed the timing, to achieve a natural and polished movement. The director required actors to transform into new characters onstage. The costumes were positioned on stage behind the actors, so transitions were efficient. This Brechtian technique required actors to apply small changes to their costumes to help represent new characters. These fast-paced transitions exhibited my ability to portray several

The actors started setting up the world before the play officially started. A couple minutes prior to 7:30 pm, the cast started appearing from the entrances and walking around embodying their characters. They were all committed to their parts and interacted with each other and sometimes the audience members as well. There were beggars asking for money, whores complaining about beggars, and fights breaking out in the isles. It was an interesting concept to have them interact with us and it was definitely a Brechtian technique. The actors continued using the idea of Brechtian theatre within the rest of the production as well. Several times, an actor would talk to the audience and acknowledge their presence as if they were also part of the world. Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum even asked the audience to clap and waited for them to do so. The production became interactive and invited the audience to be its own character. The commitment from all of the characters to really go for it and not hold back was another pleasing feature of the production. An example of this, is when Polly Peachum is lying on the floor in her wedding dress and is violent moving her body and arms. It was strange to see, but also an interesting technique to convey

The classic production of Our Town written by Thornton Wilder was performed by the students of South Milwaukee High School at their own Performing Arts Center. Overall the performance was good, but there were times where the performance went in and out of spouts of boredom. I personally felt the story was really intrequing and thought provoking which made it all more dissapointing when I felt I was being left behind by the acting effort and technical aspect. The production was bursting with a lot of tapped talent, but lacked untapped potential. In general it was a nice time seeing it and enjoying the story with the cast.

The acting was very natural. It’s what drew me in the play the most. In previous plays, I was always usually distracted with the pretty lights, attractive costumes, and the loud catchy music in the background. If summed up into a couple of words this play was just dialogue between two characters. It was a wonderful story. They were able to get across the theme across in a very subtle way which I thought was cool. It wasn’t that obvious either. As the story moves along and the communication between the uncle and niece increase, they both start realizing their fault along with the audience. The only thing that drew me out was that I sort of felt cramped in the theater. We were very close to the actors and it did create a connection, but it was too close. I needed some space so I could the entire stage and what movements the actors were doing. My favorite moment was the night scene in which the iguana scratches on the roof and really disturbs Becky. It was hilarious and needed to light up the mood. The atmosphere of the play started out funny and then drops to very serious. We find out about Sterling who has a depressing life himself at the Labyrinth scene. Becky introduces her issue which in a sense was pretty serious. Her childish attitude surprisingly wasn’t annoying at all to watch. In fact, it was adorable. The only thing that really irked me was the random kiss. It kind of ruined my impression on Becky who I really liked. I failed to

In the words of Gay McAuley, “for an activity to be regarded as a performance, it must involve the live presence of the performers and those witnessing it…” (McAuley, 2009, cited in Schechner, 2013, pp.38). This statement recognises the importance of both the actor and the audience for something to truly function as a performance. In addition, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones highlights the significance of the theatrical space and how it can influence an audience stating that “on entering a theatre of any kind, a spectator walks into a specific space, one that is designed to produce a certain reaction or series of responses” (Llewellyn-Jones, 2002, pp.3). The relationship between actor, audience and theatrical space is no less important today than it was at the time of theatre during the Spanish Golden Age and the creation of Commedia dell’arte in Italy. Despite being very close geographically with theatre thriving for both in the same era, sources that explore the social, cultural and historical context of these countries and the theatre styles will bring to light the similarities and differences. This essay will analyse the staging, the behaviour of the audience as well as the challenges the actors faced, and how this directly influenced the relationship between actor, audience and theatrical space.