A Night at the TheatreSo the roommate and I went to the inaugural performance of the shiny new Epic Theatre Company here in Madison on Saturday night, where they were performing "The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon", and had a pretty good time, I must say.
First, the venue: the play was held in local software giant Epic's large convention building (nerdily named Voyager Hall -- everything there is nerdily named though), set up in a flexible hallway space rather than one of their theatre/convention halls, interestingly enough. Set design was extremely sparse and consisted of a small stage, black backdrop curtains and a sound booth in the rear. The audience sat on about 100, 150 portable chairs, comfortable models though, not the lousy wooden folding chairs you often get at community/school/church functions.
Secondly, the work: The Spectaculathon is a humorous mish-mash/retelling of (some) of the (apparently) 209 separate fairy tales collected by The Brothers Grimm. No wonder Fables never runs out of material...
The play tries to cover all the highlights, along with a mixture of the lesser known works, often contrasting the original versions of the stories both with their better known pop-culture derivatives (i.e., Disney) and with modern storytelling sensibilities as well (Why is Little Red Riding Hood so stupid anyway? And why do people keep going into the dark, dangerous, monster infested woods?).
The cast and crew were, according to the playbill as well as personal observation, a group of talented amateurs rather than professionals, which often made the resulting entertainment more rather than less impressive. In particular, the actor who played one of two Narrators, as well as two separate Grandmothers, is a man named Sean Mikles, whose bio indicates he was last seen on stage as an eight-year old.
Another of the male leads, who plays several incarnations of Prince Charming and, at one point, the entire principal cast of Cinderella (seriously), was also very quick-witted and memorable. I'd have his name here as well, but the playbill lists everyone other than the narrators as playing 'Various', which doesn't help to narrow it down (tsk tsk).
Spectaculathon was presented as a two-act event, and so, with a short intermission the entire thing was over in about two hours. This first play was free, proving that the Epic Theatre people intend to use the time-honored marketing strategy of drug dealers everywhere... usually a smart move.
I look forward to their next project.
A note on the audience, however: we went to the evening show on Saturday, in no small part, to attempt to avoid the matinee experience, but alas it was in vain. Small children were brought, audience members loudly nattered on during the show, and those of us in the back had to strain to hear during some of the first act over one child in particular who Just. Would. Not. Shut. Up.
Uggh.
Going out to public events is seemingly less enjoyable every year. I can't begin to describe the number of events I've had ruined by these people, almost all families with small children, who insist on dragging their brats along to every function, no matter the time of day or appropriateness of the subject matter. Society just doesn't impose any limits on these people and their spawn, and it's getting to the point where, honestly, you'd have more fun staying at home.
Which is a shame, because then we'd all have to miss out on things like the Epic Theatre Company. Just to satisfy the whims of a selfish few who insist on 'having it all'.
As a civilization, we really have to do something about that. If all culture and entertainment is destined to be reduced to a chatoic mass of screaming, wailing, sour-milk-smelling children, I suggest we just spike the communal Kool-Aid and get it over with now.
First, the venue: the play was held in local software giant Epic's large convention building (nerdily named Voyager Hall -- everything there is nerdily named though), set up in a flexible hallway space rather than one of their theatre/convention halls, interestingly enough. Set design was extremely sparse and consisted of a small stage, black backdrop curtains and a sound booth in the rear. The audience sat on about 100, 150 portable chairs, comfortable models though, not the lousy wooden folding chairs you often get at community/school/church functions.
Secondly, the work: The Spectaculathon is a humorous mish-mash/retelling of (some) of the (apparently) 209 separate fairy tales collected by The Brothers Grimm. No wonder Fables never runs out of material...
The play tries to cover all the highlights, along with a mixture of the lesser known works, often contrasting the original versions of the stories both with their better known pop-culture derivatives (i.e., Disney) and with modern storytelling sensibilities as well (Why is Little Red Riding Hood so stupid anyway? And why do people keep going into the dark, dangerous, monster infested woods?).
The cast and crew were, according to the playbill as well as personal observation, a group of talented amateurs rather than professionals, which often made the resulting entertainment more rather than less impressive. In particular, the actor who played one of two Narrators, as well as two separate Grandmothers, is a man named Sean Mikles, whose bio indicates he was last seen on stage as an eight-year old.
Another of the male leads, who plays several incarnations of Prince Charming and, at one point, the entire principal cast of Cinderella (seriously), was also very quick-witted and memorable. I'd have his name here as well, but the playbill lists everyone other than the narrators as playing 'Various', which doesn't help to narrow it down (tsk tsk).
Spectaculathon was presented as a two-act event, and so, with a short intermission the entire thing was over in about two hours. This first play was free, proving that the Epic Theatre people intend to use the time-honored marketing strategy of drug dealers everywhere... usually a smart move.
I look forward to their next project.
A note on the audience, however: we went to the evening show on Saturday, in no small part, to attempt to avoid the matinee experience, but alas it was in vain. Small children were brought, audience members loudly nattered on during the show, and those of us in the back had to strain to hear during some of the first act over one child in particular who Just. Would. Not. Shut. Up.
Uggh.
Going out to public events is seemingly less enjoyable every year. I can't begin to describe the number of events I've had ruined by these people, almost all families with small children, who insist on dragging their brats along to every function, no matter the time of day or appropriateness of the subject matter. Society just doesn't impose any limits on these people and their spawn, and it's getting to the point where, honestly, you'd have more fun staying at home.
Which is a shame, because then we'd all have to miss out on things like the Epic Theatre Company. Just to satisfy the whims of a selfish few who insist on 'having it all'.
As a civilization, we really have to do something about that. If all culture and entertainment is destined to be reduced to a chatoic mass of screaming, wailing, sour-milk-smelling children, I suggest we just spike the communal Kool-Aid and get it over with now.
