Production cont 10/05/2002

The first production I took in was a production of Medea. That’s right, the Greek tragedy in rhyme and in verse. It was playing on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theater in a limited engagement and had Fiona Shaw in the lead. Now I have seen Medea about fifteen times since high school so I knew what to expect. So I thought! This production was the most disturbing and terrifying production of Medea that I have ever witnessed. It was a major study of the human condition, of revenge, of jealousy, of hate, and of love. The 90 minutes I spent in the theater watching the play was the fastest ninety minutes I have ever experienced.

I went with my friend Ken, an extremely well read, intelligent and educated man with a dry wit and a great compassion for humanity. His first comment to me when the lights went up was something he rarely says, "what a wonderful production!" I thought about the play when I went back to my hotel and asked myself why it had such a tremendous impact upon me (and the audience). Clearly the director was using cinematic directorial techniques to get the point across. It was done in modern day dress (50’s- 60’s), in the front yard of an industrial type home (cement, glass, steel) of the period.

The actors, although speaking in verse played the impulses that motivated the dialogue with modern impulses that were three dimensional without being trapped in the stylistic rhythm of the verse. Therefore even that member of the audience who may not have understood the metaphors in the text understood the base human emotions of the characters. The reality of the violence: the spattering of the blood on the glass doors; the horrific image of Medea walking in after killing her children with one of them in her arms like a pile of clothing, his body drenched in blood, were staggering. It was something akin to what we may see on screen in "American Psycho", or an episode of "Law and Order". And the audience responded.

The second play I saw was the Elton John musical Aida. Surely, in a musical I would see pure American Theater at its finest. Here is an art form (the American Musical) that was created, developed and refined in the United States. And the production was musical, entertaining in the vein of Elton John music. But at the very end of the production…the very last "shot" we saw on stage was a closeup of the two lovers. Yes a closeup. But not done with a camera. I tell students that the power of a closeup comes with the shot (image) before it and the shot (image) after it.

Here on the stage of Broadway’s Palace Theater, the director having staged the lovers buried together in a tomb, showed us their positions in the tomb facing one another. We saw into the tomb from its side and as the music built to its final crescendo the scenic elements of the tomb closed in like the iris of a camera lens leaving the last indelible image for the audience to be a closup two shot of Aida and her lover. I jumped out of my seat and my friend Michael (who was with me) had to pull me down. All I could mutter was "it’s cinematic….it’s cinematic". And because of it, the audience felt the impact of the love story and they jumped to their feet to give the production five curtain calls.

The last production I saw during my five day stay in New York was a production of Dinner for Eight at Lincoln Center. This traditional production had all the spectacle of wardrobe and sets that you would hope to find in a period film. It also had actors that you see every day on television or in the movies. They were having a grand time with an old chestnut and the audience loved the cinematic ways that the director staged the production and pulled them into the story.

I went away from New York realizing something that I have always known. Audiences are conditioned by movies. When a creative producer in other forms of entertainment is able to use some of the "clues" that make up the syntax of cinema, their project will have a lasting affect on their audience. And isn’t that what it is all about? -MS