Friday, February 25, 2005
What an F!
Tonight I went to the second to last night of the Donn B Murphy One Acts Festival (DMOAF to its friends). The illustrious Dr. Murphy himself was in attendence. The doors opened ten minutes late.
Let me begin by saying (er, begin the second paragraph...) that the format of the DMOAF has changed rather significantly this year. Instead of performing each of the "mainstage" one acts each night, they are running on alternate nights with staged readings of other works as a second act, and tonight with a "Midnight" (it started at 10:30 to accomodate the opening night party) as a third act. They also slashed the hell out of the budget. Change is good. This format was extremely successful. The place was so packed for the mainstage that they turned people away. I think the key was to concentrate the audience for each mainstage into only two nights each, and to package each element of the festival seperately--you didn't have to stay for all three acts, so the evening didn't feel overly long.
Tonight's mainstage was Diamonds are a Boy's Best Friend by Mary Nagle. The entire premise was: what if men behaved how we expect women to behave and vice versa? Let me say that I love this, that I think it's a very important and relevant question. However. So the first scene opens with Dad in a pink blouse setting the table for dinner, calling in the kids. Son comes skipping in in a pink top and lots of make up. Daughter wears her clothes too big and has very little facial expression. Mom wears a suit (very clearly a man's suit) and comes home late and grumpy from work. Initially, it works really well. Why do we accept tittering hyperactivity from teenage girls and sullen silence from teenage boys but not vice versa? Why do we expect mom to make dinner and dad to come home late? But as it went on, it became clear that we weren't looking at people, just rather thin stereotypes of each age and gender. The fact that the "girl" parts were being played by boys wasn't having much further effect once the initial realization of the premise wore off. The whole thing was also complicated by the additional story line, in which the parents are having severe marital problems and fight a lot. So Mom is dismissive and verbally abusive and Dad is passive aggressive and an overall basketcase, which just made me spend the entire thing going, "Mom isn't acting like a man, she's acting like an asshole, and we know that's an equal opportunity condition." None of this is to say that it couldn't have worked. I think in some way they did themselves in by committing too strenuously to the concept. I don't want to make everything about costume (ok, fine. I do. but whatever) but they essentially dressed them in drag and really played up the stereotypes, even altered their voices--men raising them and women lowering them. Instead of making us think about gender expectations, this had the effect of male actors playing women and female actors playing men. After a while, you start to forget the actor is not of the character's gender, sort of the way you forget that Nathan Lane is not actually a woman in The Birdcage. We weren't considering that a teenage boy can have the same body image issues that a girl can--we're just watching a guy in a girl's top and makeup stress over a zit in a high voice. That doesn't tell me anything new about men or even maleness. It just tells me that Mary Nagle can write a shallow girl character, and they found a guy who would play her. All I'm saying is, the idea had a lot of promise, but it just didn't do it for me.
The second act "staged reading" was something called The Tritagonist, which I loved loved loved. I didn't understand most of it, but it was great. Lots of Greek mythology in it, which contrary to what my name might imply, I know nothing about. I think it helped that they had three of Georgetown's best actresses right now--Jen Rogers, Sarah Krokey and Diana Aurisch. anyway, it was great fun.
The third act was a musical revue of Jason Robert Brown songs. Hey, doesn't that sound familiar? well yeah, but, um, I really missed Ian's production after seeing this. The program actually said "this production is exclusively for audiences who are trizzashed." and they weren't kidding. the MC/Stage Manager introduced the show by saying that it included lots of people who no one knew could sing. that's because a lot of them can't actually sing. they also couldn't remember the lyrics. but that's ok. they had a damn lot of fun up there, and we had enough fun watching them, even those of us who weren't "trizzashed." and Sarah Sexton does have a lovely singing voice.
Now I'm going to write something much more......appropriate on the GTA website. Which I know all of you read as regularly as you read this. I know you do.
Let me begin by saying (er, begin the second paragraph...) that the format of the DMOAF has changed rather significantly this year. Instead of performing each of the "mainstage" one acts each night, they are running on alternate nights with staged readings of other works as a second act, and tonight with a "Midnight" (it started at 10:30 to accomodate the opening night party) as a third act. They also slashed the hell out of the budget. Change is good. This format was extremely successful. The place was so packed for the mainstage that they turned people away. I think the key was to concentrate the audience for each mainstage into only two nights each, and to package each element of the festival seperately--you didn't have to stay for all three acts, so the evening didn't feel overly long.
Tonight's mainstage was Diamonds are a Boy's Best Friend by Mary Nagle. The entire premise was: what if men behaved how we expect women to behave and vice versa? Let me say that I love this, that I think it's a very important and relevant question. However. So the first scene opens with Dad in a pink blouse setting the table for dinner, calling in the kids. Son comes skipping in in a pink top and lots of make up. Daughter wears her clothes too big and has very little facial expression. Mom wears a suit (very clearly a man's suit) and comes home late and grumpy from work. Initially, it works really well. Why do we accept tittering hyperactivity from teenage girls and sullen silence from teenage boys but not vice versa? Why do we expect mom to make dinner and dad to come home late? But as it went on, it became clear that we weren't looking at people, just rather thin stereotypes of each age and gender. The fact that the "girl" parts were being played by boys wasn't having much further effect once the initial realization of the premise wore off. The whole thing was also complicated by the additional story line, in which the parents are having severe marital problems and fight a lot. So Mom is dismissive and verbally abusive and Dad is passive aggressive and an overall basketcase, which just made me spend the entire thing going, "Mom isn't acting like a man, she's acting like an asshole, and we know that's an equal opportunity condition." None of this is to say that it couldn't have worked. I think in some way they did themselves in by committing too strenuously to the concept. I don't want to make everything about costume (ok, fine. I do. but whatever) but they essentially dressed them in drag and really played up the stereotypes, even altered their voices--men raising them and women lowering them. Instead of making us think about gender expectations, this had the effect of male actors playing women and female actors playing men. After a while, you start to forget the actor is not of the character's gender, sort of the way you forget that Nathan Lane is not actually a woman in The Birdcage. We weren't considering that a teenage boy can have the same body image issues that a girl can--we're just watching a guy in a girl's top and makeup stress over a zit in a high voice. That doesn't tell me anything new about men or even maleness. It just tells me that Mary Nagle can write a shallow girl character, and they found a guy who would play her. All I'm saying is, the idea had a lot of promise, but it just didn't do it for me.
The second act "staged reading" was something called The Tritagonist, which I loved loved loved. I didn't understand most of it, but it was great. Lots of Greek mythology in it, which contrary to what my name might imply, I know nothing about. I think it helped that they had three of Georgetown's best actresses right now--Jen Rogers, Sarah Krokey and Diana Aurisch. anyway, it was great fun.
The third act was a musical revue of Jason Robert Brown songs. Hey, doesn't that sound familiar? well yeah, but, um, I really missed Ian's production after seeing this. The program actually said "this production is exclusively for audiences who are trizzashed." and they weren't kidding. the MC/Stage Manager introduced the show by saying that it included lots of people who no one knew could sing. that's because a lot of them can't actually sing. they also couldn't remember the lyrics. but that's ok. they had a damn lot of fun up there, and we had enough fun watching them, even those of us who weren't "trizzashed." and Sarah Sexton does have a lovely singing voice.
Now I'm going to write something much more......appropriate on the GTA website. Which I know all of you read as regularly as you read this. I know you do.
