Thursday, June 14, 2018

The Mother in Law From Hell

The Daughter-in-law is different than what most people would imagine when thinking of a play. This play is structured with an audience 360 degrees around the set. It is structured more like a real life scenario being witnessed by an audience than a play. The actors are much below the audience, not on a stage. There are no curtains because of the nature of the area where they perform. During scenes, they have to walk off, or freeze, and have the lights turned off rather than close any curtains. Due to this limiting nature, they only have one set that has to be used and re-imagined into other sets. This also meant there was no way for the audience to leave without walking through the set. If someone left, they were not allowed back in until intermission. The actors enter from either a doorway that lead to backstage or through the door that we all entered in as an audience. The actors are being seen from all around, so they have to make sure they are playing the part in every way. The props need to be actual items rather than set up wood pieces because they are being seen by the audience from every angle. That means the insides of cabinets have to be real, food in pots have to be removed when eaten, so the audience cannot see it after it should be gone.

This theatre is much more intimate and only allows for two rows of audience all around. The audience is able to see everything much clearer than they are in any other sort of theatre. Facial expressions need to be engaging, props need to be detailed. The actors seem to be able to use more over a conversation voice than a loud voice that needs to be protected across a massive theatre. There are no need for microphones. There was more intimacy between the actors because they could get physically closer and use little expressions that everyone in the audience was able to see and pick up on. When intermission came around, everyone could go upstairs to the bar, which is where this theatre is located- below a bar. If one were to walk into the bar, they could easily spend time there and leave without ever knowing there was a theatre below it.

This theatre was much different than the first one we went to in Leicester Square. For Sh*tfaced Shakespeare, we entered the theatre buy going down a dark staircase. There was no lobby or bar to walk through first. At the bottom of the stairs were all the seats. This theatre had at least 15 rows of seats that contained over 30 seats per row. About 2 of those rows is equivalent to what the other theatre could hold. The further back you were in the theatre, the less the details of the props and the actors matter. It was almost impossible to see little gestures that mattered to the play, leaving audience members, closer to the back, confused. The actors had to project their voices much louder than the ones at the ARCOLA did. This made it more of a theatrical play rather than an intimate real-life play. Their voices were various inflected for the audience to understand the mood or nature of the scene without having to see close details. At the ARCOLA, they could speak to each other they normally would have in conversation because everyone throughout the theatre can easily hear them. There was no need for a theatrical voice which made the audience feel like it was witnessing an event unfold. The play at Leicester Square was not very serious, especially because an actress was drunk. The ARCOLA play was a very serious, very emotional play that the audience was able to become invested into.

There is no way to decide which kind is better because the nature of both the settings and the play are very different and unique. Both were fantastic and worth viewing.

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