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Review: Bill of (W)Rights
Sep. 10th, 2006 12:15 amRTE, the Renegade Theatre Experiment, opened their production Friday night of this team-written play which is designed to shock, educate and provoke Deep Thought about what is happening to the Bill of Rights these days.
With one exception, the cast is outstanding. The directing (by Susannah Greenwood) defies classification because the way the show was presented also defies classification. Part of the "Experiment" was to shake things up a bit by not having all of the audience see all of the show in the same order, or in the same room. After the first couple of scenes, the audience is split in half, with half remaining in the theater and the other half herded into a small room in the theater annex, a rehearsal hall, I think. We also saw scenes in an outdoor courtyard (which is a poor choice on windy and chilly fall nights), the hallway outside the main auditorium, and the Green Room.
The general idea of each scene was to take one of the 10 amendments and show how it has eroded in our society, or could under the wrong circumstances. Except for the opening and closing scenes, which were more general.
The opening scene starts with the cast shouting "fire". The theater wasn't all that crowded, and the layout of the auditorium is such that had there been an actual fire, we would have known it, so the point fell flat. There were a few times when the playwrights missed the mark by either using tired old arguments or by making a scene more complex than it had to be to prove the point.
I'll be honest and say that one reason I went was I was told there would be nudity onstage. There was, on the part of the very attractive Alika Spencer in the opening scene, but it didn't serve any purpose that I could tell. I suppose the fact that she had a swastika tattooed where one might ordinarily expect to find pubic hair may have been some sort of free expression statement, but she had arrived onstage in an Nazi Chick outfit, and obviously was representing that sector, so having her strip struck me as gratuitous.
Also, nobody else got naked, which was disappointing, and made Alika's nudity even more out of place. Perhaps if, during that opening scene, the whole cast stripped...
( lots more behind the cut )
Despite my dings and jabs, I think this show well worth seeing, and recommend it.
Bill of (W)Rights continues through -
well isn't that special: They don't say in the program, I'll have to look on the web site, which also is not in the program. Oh. Here it is on my faves list.
September 23 at
Historic Hoover Theater
1635 Park Avenue
San José , CA 95126
All performances begin at 8pm except Sunday.
Sunday performances begin at 2pm.
With one exception, the cast is outstanding. The directing (by Susannah Greenwood) defies classification because the way the show was presented also defies classification. Part of the "Experiment" was to shake things up a bit by not having all of the audience see all of the show in the same order, or in the same room. After the first couple of scenes, the audience is split in half, with half remaining in the theater and the other half herded into a small room in the theater annex, a rehearsal hall, I think. We also saw scenes in an outdoor courtyard (which is a poor choice on windy and chilly fall nights), the hallway outside the main auditorium, and the Green Room.
The general idea of each scene was to take one of the 10 amendments and show how it has eroded in our society, or could under the wrong circumstances. Except for the opening and closing scenes, which were more general.
The opening scene starts with the cast shouting "fire". The theater wasn't all that crowded, and the layout of the auditorium is such that had there been an actual fire, we would have known it, so the point fell flat. There were a few times when the playwrights missed the mark by either using tired old arguments or by making a scene more complex than it had to be to prove the point.
I'll be honest and say that one reason I went was I was told there would be nudity onstage. There was, on the part of the very attractive Alika Spencer in the opening scene, but it didn't serve any purpose that I could tell. I suppose the fact that she had a swastika tattooed where one might ordinarily expect to find pubic hair may have been some sort of free expression statement, but she had arrived onstage in an Nazi Chick outfit, and obviously was representing that sector, so having her strip struck me as gratuitous.
Also, nobody else got naked, which was disappointing, and made Alika's nudity even more out of place. Perhaps if, during that opening scene, the whole cast stripped...
( lots more behind the cut )
Despite my dings and jabs, I think this show well worth seeing, and recommend it.
Bill of (W)Rights continues through -
well isn't that special: They don't say in the program, I'll have to look on the web site, which also is not in the program. Oh. Here it is on my faves list.
September 23 at
Historic Hoover Theater
1635 Park Avenue
San José , CA 95126
All performances begin at 8pm except Sunday.
Sunday performances begin at 2pm.
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