Hirsch's Log
Meeting at 10:30ish, we discussed schedules, Anne told us about the I Megalomani
performance.
Plan at the moment is for us to all head out to
the Hideout to help with the reconfigure, and hang around in town, do dinner,
and then go watch shows for the evening.
(Later) Reconfig was easier than it might have
been ... thank goodness. And the owner is letting us leave the flats, since
we’re in the upstairs theatre (smaller than downstairs, but oh well), that’s
a good thingTM. With the heat and the humidity, moving the
flats upstairs every evening was not something we were looking forward to.
We did a quick dinner after getting everyone back
together and went to find the Center Studio to see the three shows that were
happening this evening. Good stuff. We were concerned that some of our material
was over-the-top in the bawdy department, but we were soooo wrong on that ...
I Megalomani, one of the Austin troupes, were much more over-the-top than
anything we’ve done. That’s ok, we’re not worried. I Sebastiani, the SCA troupe
from Boston (Carolingia) were a lot of fun. All three performances were good,
we laughed pretty hard, and I think we got some interesting ideas both for schtick
and physical stuff.
On the way back, those of us in the one van (Rose,
Juan, Seamus, Aldith, Hirsch, and Fionn) decided that we would try to do a
line-through tomorrow after our meeting ...
Juan's Log
Morning meeting. Looks like the things to be doing today are heading out to
help reconfigure the Hideout stage (why they messed with it in the first place
is a complete mystery to me), and seeing three of the shows this evening.
(I Megalomani, I Sebastiani and Commedia dell'Carte).
Later -
Went to the Hideout to see the space and setup.
I was not happy with the space at first glance, but we worked with it a
bit and it is much better now.
Went to see three shows last night as well.
Commedia dell'Carte - Took them a while to hit their
stride, but once they did they were pretty good. I had some trouble with
understanding their Arlecchino initially because it was played by a woman
with an accent. Apparently Brazilian. She was good once I could
penetrate the accent. I wasn’t impressed with Their Director/Pulcinella character.
He seemed to be all punch which just didn’t really amuse me all that much.
On the other hand, the cart is fascinating. They carry
their whole show in a cart which converts into their stage. Very cool.
I Megalomani - They are excellent. Their physical
stuff was excellent (especially the way they handled their ‘balcony’), but I
did have a slight problem with some of the material. Everyone is complaining
about the Dick Cheny joke, and I have to agree, but I also found some of the
'off color' humor to be a bit too much. Commedia is supposed to very bawdy,
of course, so there is nothing wrong with what they did, but I tend to think
that bawdy doesn’t have to be ‘off color’ ... That’s as much our prejudice
as anything else I would guess. In The Stags we always remind ourselves that we
have to have a family show, so we tend to rely on more subtle humor to get the
bawdy stuff across.
I Sebastiani - These are the other SCA group.
They are actually improvising from a scenario. They are very good in that
regard. I did have some problems however following everything going on.
When you're improvising it is always a danger that things you are doing or
saying might be stepping on something else being done or said on stage at the
same time and this is exactly what kept happening.
I’ve done some improv years ago and it was not
easy, so I have to give them real credit for this, but the problem of stepping
on lines and such can be difficult on an audience and really hard to learn
for an actor.
I made a point of discussing rehearsal methods with
a few of them for getting into doing improv, and they aren’t doing anything that
we couldn’t do. It would take a lot of work and I would really love to do it
personally, but I don’t know how many people would really be up for it.
See Photos from the afternoon "setup" Session