A Day Devoted to the Goddess
Mar. 29th, 2008 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
howeirdThe goddess ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scendan, that is. Went to Livermore today, arrived at about noon meaning to have lunch but wasn't that hungry so hung out at Peet's instead, then walked over to the Bankhead Theater (named after Tallula?) and picked up my ticket for Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues which was a benefit for, and performed by members and friends of the Tri-Valley Haven. My seat was B1, which was in the second row, in the stage right section (across the aisle from the primo orchestra center seats). My to my pleasant surprise, after a few minutes B2 was occupied by iamradar, who had arrived with a friend.
The show was excellent. Done on a mostly bare stage with a few chairs and a bench or two and a lectern, 11 women dressed mostly in black and/or red delivered their lines either singly, in pairs or trios. It was clear Director Eleisa (Lisa) Cambra focused on hitting your mark, picking up cues, learning your lines. For a cast who mostly had never been on stage before, they did a near-perfect job, as did the light board operator. One of the down sides of a tightly run show is often lines get lost when the cast doesn't wait for the laughs. There were many laughs, and with a packed house they were very loud as well. As the show progressed the cast got better at their comic timing.
I personally did not like when they split the monologues between three people - it felt like a three-way ping-pong match and defeated the whole purpose of monologue. The actors did very well with a difficult assignment, but it was no surprise that the most applause went to the 1-person routines.
Interspersed between the monologues were factoids about abuse issues, most of them apparently drawn from research, a couple anecdotal, one of which was wrong. Unfortunately the reason it was wrong is it said the last recorded clitorectomy in the U.S. occurred in 1948. According to Peace Corps alumni reports, this is a continuing practice among some African families, even those living in the USA. Also, doctors will perform the operation to prevent a baby from growing up a hermaphrodite. Blame the author for the factoid mistake.
After the show, I joined_oy_ and scendan and Cherisse (sp? whose LJ name I do not know) at a bar across the street from the theater for a cast party, but after the handing out of flowers to the cast members, we split due to noise level and price level, and eventually we were joined by two more friends of the Goddess for dinner at Sansar. Good food, somewhat confused service, excellent conversation.
scendan, that is. Went to Livermore today, arrived at about noon meaning to have lunch but wasn't that hungry so hung out at Peet's instead, then walked over to the Bankhead Theater (named after Tallula?) and picked up my ticket for Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues which was a benefit for, and performed by members and friends of the Tri-Valley Haven. My seat was B1, which was in the second row, in the stage right section (across the aisle from the primo orchestra center seats). My to my pleasant surprise, after a few minutes B2 was occupied by iamradar, who had arrived with a friend.The show was excellent. Done on a mostly bare stage with a few chairs and a bench or two and a lectern, 11 women dressed mostly in black and/or red delivered their lines either singly, in pairs or trios. It was clear Director Eleisa (Lisa) Cambra focused on hitting your mark, picking up cues, learning your lines. For a cast who mostly had never been on stage before, they did a near-perfect job, as did the light board operator. One of the down sides of a tightly run show is often lines get lost when the cast doesn't wait for the laughs. There were many laughs, and with a packed house they were very loud as well. As the show progressed the cast got better at their comic timing.
I personally did not like when they split the monologues between three people - it felt like a three-way ping-pong match and defeated the whole purpose of monologue. The actors did very well with a difficult assignment, but it was no surprise that the most applause went to the 1-person routines.
Interspersed between the monologues were factoids about abuse issues, most of them apparently drawn from research, a couple anecdotal, one of which was wrong. Unfortunately the reason it was wrong is it said the last recorded clitorectomy in the U.S. occurred in 1948. According to Peace Corps alumni reports, this is a continuing practice among some African families, even those living in the USA. Also, doctors will perform the operation to prevent a baby from growing up a hermaphrodite. Blame the author for the factoid mistake.
After the show, I joined
_oy_ and scendan and Cherisse (sp? whose LJ name I do not know) at a bar across the street from the theater for a cast party, but after the handing out of flowers to the cast members, we split due to noise level and price level, and eventually we were joined by two more friends of the Goddess for dinner at Sansar. Good food, somewhat confused service, excellent conversation.
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Date: 2008-03-31 06:06 pm (UTC)*HUG*
That's very interesting about the inaccurate factoid. Thank you for posting that. That makes a lot of sense, but I didn't realize it. Very very interesting.
As far as some of our lines getting lost in the laughter--yep. Some definitely did. I think if our cast (myself included) were a bit more experienced, we'd have been better at timing the picking up of the next line to the downswing of laughter. I know that for me, sitting for long periods of time as I did in Act I, it was sometimes frustrating to hear a line get swallowed in laughter when the actor didn't pause. *shrug* Eh, I'm sure I did the same thing.
In my understanding, those three-way bits are always three-way bits in all performances, although don't quote me on it. But I do see your point and kind of agree with it. Not sure how those little one-liners would work done solo, although Eve Ensler did them solo in the HBO version I saw. Hmmm. Must ponder.
BTW, Lisa Cambra was also the lightboard operator. LOL! Her background is in technical theater stuff. :)
I am very glad it came off well overall. Thank you for the review. :) And, even more, thank you for coming to the show and to dinner. It was delightful!!!!
no subject
Date: 2008-03-31 07:51 pm (UTC)A little VM history for you to put things into their proper perspective. Ensler, who was not trained or experienced in anything theatrical or journalistic, wrote the piece as a one-woman protest. In the early years, some famous actresses (Whoopie Goldberg, Jane Fonda, etc.) gave benefit performances where they each read a group of the monologues, but they remained monologues. I know a couple of other people who have been in productions of VM, they told me they were given whole pieces to perform, there was no tag-team reading. In fact, there was no memorization - it was always done from a script. The reason being that from an actor's standpoint it is awkwardly written - long lists of thoughts in no particular order, there is no logical progression from one monologue to the next. I'm not making a value judgment here, I'm just saying it's more challenging for an actor than most other works.
I was amazed last year when you said you had to memorize it, and even more amazed to see 11 women doing it off-book. On the one hand, major kudos for the cast & director to pull it off, but on the other hand, major dings at the director for inflicting this kind of torture on an amateur cast with more-than-full-time day jobs.
As for the factoids, they show what a sheltered life Ensler had. I had very mixed feelings hearing them - since I hang with former Peace Corps volunteers who have served in Africa, I know of things which are much more gruesome, and I know in your work you have come across worse situations than the monologues depict. But how much do people need to be shocked?
I'm delighted you're delighted.
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Date: 2012-10-30 07:47 am (UTC)