File puptcrit/puptcrit.0904, message 397


From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Mathieu_Ren=E9?= <creaturiste-AT-primus.ca>
To: <puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org>
Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2009 23:45:58 -0400
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Seeing shows "just because"


Elizabeth wrote:
>How many shows have you attended that you were sure they would be
good and ended up being a disappointment?   Quite a few of those
could be listed to.

Yeah. Actually the first "real play" with "real profesionnal actors" that I 
saw was so flat and boring they turned me off Theater for many years.  It 
was Sheakespeare's As You wish, in French.
I didn't understand English back then, but I could tell they screwed up the 
pronounciation of the female lead's name, really badly. They made it into a 
french name, and the horidness of it made the whole thing an even bigger 
farce. I was no more than 11 when I saw that, and it kind of marked me.

Puppetry brought me back to Theater. Puppetry is a great uniter of styles 
and performing approaches!


REVIEW:
So, I went and saw the big multi-million dollar production of Sherazade.
It's based on the Arabian Nights, but it's a major rewrite and dilution, 
just like Disney is so infamous for with any traditional story they touch . 
Yet... I enjoyed it a whole lot! I'm still excited about it!
In a few words: I loved the performance, visuals, music. Very inspiring. I 
was disapointed by the lyrics and the weak story.


In way too many details for most:

Everything visual and musical was stunning. All the performers were 
impressive and in a synchronisation I have rarely seen. Singer with dancers 
and musicians together for a great effect. Real dedicated, generous 
professionnals who gave it their all.
The singers had good voices, and were giving it their all. Some of them even 
saved the moments, when the lyrics were making me painfully cringe (sadly, I 
am not exagerating. more on that later).

Tha dancers were all terrific. Their mastery over their bodies was a sight 
to be seen.
One of them was like Ariel in the tempest, a link between the scenes, 
dancing his way like a spirit, a servant who also interacted physically with 
the main characters, and even instigated set changes (with help from 
everybody, including the leads). His graceful dance work was impressive, 
especially considering his massive structure and the power he could, and 
did, display in some key moments.
At one point, as an exit, he jumped and blasted through a trick wall (bands 
of flexible materials, actors could go in and out of them) . It was 
impressive, expecially since I think he had to trust that someone had placed 
a mat or something to cushion his landing.

The belly dancers were lots of fun and surprise to watch. Almost hypnotic.
The fact that they were all quite beautiful didn't hurt either. Such 
possibilities of muscles isolation!
They brought a lighter mood between the major scenes.

The male dancers were impressive as well, but a bit less. Maybe I'm biased 
in this case, but I thought they had less presence than they could have had. 
Then again, maybe that was a director's choice, since the female aspects 
were central to the story.
Such teamwork, the dancers were all synchronized together, and with the 
music, which sometimes sounded like it was made to be impressive, with 
sudden stops and restarts, as if to challenge the performers.

The technical aspects were flawless, despite the huge probability for 
glitches (so many electrically-driven huge set changes). That alone would 
have been worth seeing.
They even used a real fire center downstage (probably gaz, judging from the 
fast flickering and colors).

The sets were rich and magnificent, versatile and extremely efficient.
There was the proscenium, and two other stone walls with columns behind it, 
the ceilings of each a little less tall then the previous. Before the stone 
walls, a two-panel sliding wall of ornate see-through "metalwork" was used 
to separate the rooms and add depth. Colored lights dictated the material's 
appearance. The walls were probably off-white, or cream, in reality, but I 
couldn't tell.
I love to be unable to guess!
The upstage wall was sometimes video projectino, sometimes the magic tiled 
wall into which the characters could pass.

They used video and other sorts of projections in just the right amounts. 
Colors were blasted boldly or soflty suggested to change the moods, and it 
all worked flawlessly.
Much of the set's magic was brought by the use of proscenium height sheer 
draperies, which caught and filtered the lights, bringing depth on stage the 
likes of which I have never seen.
The actors used the same draperies often, as part of their choregraphies, 
and even once or twice as clothing. At one point, they get hoisted up by 
some invisible points and threads to the ceiling, forming a deep, multiple 
billowed tent, which in combination with the lights, was just stunning.
They probably used fiber optics for subtle but magical starlit sky. The 
stars appeared on every wall except the upstage one (video projections).

The lyrics varied from awful-embarassing to "pretty good". Those occasionnal 
awful sequences were what made me lose the illusion and start analysing 
things again.
I love the French language so much, that the butchery of it is painful and 
insulting to me.
I hope I don't butcher English to much, in my clumsy late-learner way.
Back to the show:
It makes me wonder if the lyricist had enough time to write what he had to.
The whole show is sung, so I'm sure it was a big workload.
 Some song's lyrics just didn't make the cut, mostly because of cheap 
rhymes, predictability, and sometimes a kind of incompatibility with the 
music. The average song lyrics was ok, but no more. Three songs' lyrics were 
pretty good. It was also painful to see good singers unable to lift the song 
past a certain level below what it could have been (very good music!), just 
because of weak choice of words.  I said it before, bad lyrics are a pet 
peeve of mine. It's the first reason that forces me to avoid local radio, 
the second being the incessant repetition of the same bleeping playlists.
I'm affraid it also discouraged me, for a long time, from listening to 
what's being made here.
Among the insignificant crap, which is plentiful everytime I snuck a peak, 
there were still gems being born. I just didn't get to hear them that often. 
Thankfully, I recently started listening again, but using music services and 
friend's suggestions.

The story was really lacking in substance.
It was about Sherazade more than anything else, which is cool, because it's 
the title.
It's from the famous and story-rich Arabian nights, and of the stories, they 
only talk about Aladdin and the lamp (barely), and mention Sinbad in 
passing. They added a witch (Djinnia), probably because there should be an 
evil character (I could be wrong, she might have been in there somewhere, I 
never read the original set of tales). She brought a bit of fun though. I 
said before, all the performers were fantastic, so none of them are to blame 
for the story or lyrics' flaws.

The ending had a major oversight in the problemsolving department.
The main character dies, people mourn. Then everybody, including the sister 
who poisonned her, and the witch who made her do it, all start singing 
together about forgiveness and love. What the???
Just like that? Aladdin's Djinn and the witch who made him into one (love 
quarrel) reconcile. Together they bring Sherazade back to life. Then all is 
well that ends well.
I'm a real sucker for happy endings, but that was a bit too easy, and 
nonsensical.

Despite the story and lyric flaws, I really enjoyed my time there, such was 
the power of everything visual and musical and energetic brought together. I 
have the utmost respect for all who were involved in creating and 
maintaining that show.  Even the lyricist (some good stuff in there, and it 
was a daunting task). Theatre never ceases to amaze and contradict me.
I love it for it!


The 80$ tickets are worth it (thankfully, I had a free ticket from a friend 
who works in the entertainment biz. She also enjoyed it a lot), higly 
entertaining!

It's in French. If you come in the Montreal area up to May 2nd (in Quebec 
city after that) , go see it even if you don't speak French, the 
performance, visuals and music are worth it.


official site:
http://www.sherazade1001nuits.com/
The small pictures (first link in the photo section) really don't do the 
show justice, but you can see some of the structures.






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