It has been quite a few years since I had the luxury or the excuse to see a play. I saw a clever adaptation of Jules Verne's "Around the World in 80 Days" last night at the Theatrical Outfit, a small theater in the heart of downtown Atlanta.
We began the evening with a tour of the theater lead by their Development and Communications Directors. The theater is newly renovated and LEEDS certified (the first theater in the U.S. to do this) and was not at all like the dusty, black boxes where I watched all of the plays of my youth. I even remember a backstage tour of Whoopi Goldberg's first Broadway production that was that chalky black spray-paint feel draped with heavy black fabric curtains and smelled of cigarettes and old make-up. This was 'back in the 80's.' This theater is modern and spare with well-thought out spaces and feels more like a fancy office. The dressing rooms and green rooms and prop spaces are very orderly, labeled with door plaques, and emanate a sense of order. I remember the backstage areas of theaters littered with old props, smeared with layers of make-up, and oozing with mystery.
The set and stage design for this play was equally well-planned and minimalistic. Communicating the idea of a journey around the world on foot, boat, train and elephant on a small stage seems impossible. This was actually one of the best features of this performance. My last theater experience was "The Lion King" at the Civic Center. Your senses are overwhelmed with sound, costumes and set props in this Disney production. "Around the World" used luggage racks and carefully placed lengths of fabric to create a world of movement and exotic locales on a very small stage.
The actors were convincing. I tend to want to be lost and swept away at the theater and this time I was not. The part of the French butler was played very well and I did enjoy his antics and clever dialogue.
It was a skillful adaptation of a huge novel to a very small stage with only five actors. I enjoyed it very much. Like the Wasserstein article pointed out, the audience was largely white, upper-middle class, and older. I saw two teen-aged looking kids in the audience.
The entire night I wished I could have brought one of my ENG 1101 students to the production. I am already thinking of ways to integrate theater and performances into my spring 1102-literature courses. This will be very exciting to discover more local theater resources and begin to integrate them into my own classroom.
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I agree that one of the most fascinating aspects of this production was the HOW - how it was adapted to the small stage, how they conveyed the setting to the audience, how they reused props and actors. This is probably one of my favorite aspects of performances in general. I like seeing new plays that I've never seen before, but I think I enjoy even more a play I have seen before. It is so much fun to compare/contrast the different versions and to see what new "spin" has been added. As well, I am fascinated by the way the actors and directors play with my imagination, by the things that ask me to accept - like a series of luggage carts as a train or a rolling platform as a steamboat. That is the magic of theater - the suspension of reality.
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