Word: stagecrafter
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Feeling that the plays of his day "tried to capture verisimilitude, not reality," Wilder set out to write plays that would exist against the largest dimensions of time and space. Our Town solves the problems of stagecraft by avoiding them. "There's some scenery for those who think they have to have scenery," comments the Stage Manager when two trellises are pushed out onto the stage. There are lighting directions--and Lewis Lehman's lighting was effective--but one has the feeling that the play could get by on the one bare bulb which shines on the stage...
Statecraft & Stagecraft. With a female eye for pageantry and a female solidarity with a woman both hated and admired by historians. British Biographer Jenkins has painted a string of brilliant miniatures of her heroine. She maintains that the Queen had a kind of magic ("a quality of incantation") about her by which she managed to unite state, nation and the reformed religion in one person. How else explain the almost mystical response by the London mob to her coronation progress through the streets? Elizabeth, crying "God 'a mercy" to her people from beneath a canopy held by knights...
...again in her Chicago Butterfly, in which, after committing suicide, she flung the knife resoundingly to the floor and died somewhat grotesquely, crawling the width of the stage in response to Pinkerton's thrice-called "Butterfly!" But her real failing, say her harshest critics, is not one of stagecraft but of emotional involvement. While some observers recall her on the verge of tears after a performance of Butterfly, others remember her picking herself up after the death scene in Traviata and strolling into the wings humming a pop tune...
Angelic Host. Quiet and intense, Wieland differs from his tempestuous grandfather in temperament, but not in artistic outlook. Both stagecraft innovators in their day, Richard liked his opera gorgeously colored and realistically detailed; Wieland likes to keep his decor schematic and sparse, consisting more of lines and lights than of wood and canvas. Traditionalist critics sometimes say that he keeps things simple out of a lack of imagination, or to save money. But his latest production looked as if it might convert the last holdouts among the traditionalists; almost certainly the Old Man would have been one of the converts...
Spirit, a good sense of stagecraft, excellent singing, and intelligence turns this rather simple story into a charming musical. David Pursley reaches professional heights as Matthew Arnold Fulton influential publisher and loyal party supporter. Wilmer Cody as Wintergreen and Cathy Connoly as Mary are both excellent, although Miss Connoly's singing sometimes drowns out the entire chorus. Wendy Shepherd successfully plays a sultry, shady Diana Devereaux ("I was the most beautiful blossom in all the Southland") and Harvey Zaff out-does Sherman Adams as presidential assistant...