Theatre

National Theatre Live

HD from London

A St. Paul’s School summer course, this being the second of two Shakespeare plays produced over a 4-week program.  This was an ambitious goal, but they carried it off.

The highlight was definitely the “sheeple” admirably led by Corin the shepherd.

As You Like It program

This production of Cymbeline was held at St. Paul’s School in Concord, NH.  It is hard to believe that a group of students can prepare a performance of Shakespeare in a little over 2 weeks, but they did indeed do it.

The synopsis helped, as well as prior viewing of the recent movie version. It was interesting that one of the best performances was Hadley Pope as Imogen, in her debut performance.  She played alongside a very good Poshumus by Sam Kingston.  His bio indicates prior theater experience, and certainly the rapidity but perfect clarity of his lines bore that out.  Some strong supporting roles were Cymbeline by Nancy Gregory and Helena Whitcomb as Lucius, in her debut as well.

There were some unintended humorous moments, with the beheading of Cloten, and also some intended ones with the blustering of Jupiter.

They did a good job with a challenging play.

Cymbeline July 2015

This was the season opener for the New London Barn Playhouse.  This is always a fun and intimate venue, with a cast made up of young enthusiastic theater students.

This was a musical that I knew very little about, and it was not about the Roma as I learned.  Rather it was based on the autobiography of Gypsy Rose Lee, a famous stripper in the 50’s.

This was also unusual in that it is not your typical happy-go-lucky show, but rather more of a tragedy.  The evolution of the character, in particular the titular Gypsy does not become clear until the end.  The key part here is the driven mother Mama Rose, well acted by Anne Torsiglieri.  However, I found the singing somewhat harsh, and shrill – maybe the sound system or the acoustics?  Not a musical I would recommend.