I recently saw they play Blithe Spirit. The story of me getting there can be read here. Before I talk about the actual play it's self, let me tell you about the way the stage was set up. This wasn't your typical set up where "there's the stage and there's the house." It was set up like the stage was in the center of the room and stadium bleachers surrounding it on all for sides, but they were more like a hybrid between normal theater seats and stadium seats. I walked in and didn't fully realize that when I went to an open seat, I completely walked across the set. That was a really interesting way to tell the story. Instead of everyone getting a relatively similar experience by all facing the same way, there were 4 different perspectives. With that, things were a little more real since everyone wasn't coming from the wings to go on stage and there wasn't cheesy isometric sets. But the best part about it was that things weren't awkwardly set to face the audience and actors weren't awkwardly always facing the audience. For those of you out there who aren't familiar with theatre performance, a big thing in performance is to always face the audience so they can fully see and hear the actors, sometimes resulting in slightly awkward performance. Well no worries here, the actors were always and at the same time never facing the audience. Well now that I have that out of the way, now on to the review of the play.
Blithe Spirit is about a spirit, but surprisingly not Blithe's. There's this guy who's writing a horror novel and he hires a medium to help get inspiration. In doing so he cojurs the spirit of his first dead wife. This leads to hilarious issues because he is currently remarried and he is the only one who can see and hear the spirit. The spirit will talk to him and he'll reply, but then his current wife thinks he's talking to her. Over the course of the play, everyone else begin to realize that the spirit is real and not just the main guy going crazy. I can't go on without spoiling plot elements so now I'll just talk about aspects of the play.
For starters, it was really funny, and I mean really. I didn't really have many pre-conceived ideas, but since it was sponsored by he honors college for a cultural event, and free through them, I guess I thought it might be culture heavy in a less than happy way. But this was hilarious. And this wasn't like some hilarious plays I've seen where all the humor is rooted in blue comedy. Almost all of it was intellectual comedy, or just ridiculousness, but never blue, which is good for me. I enjoy probably every form of comedy, except for blue. I guess I don't like lame, but does anyone besides who's telling it find it funny? Blue is just cheap though, and I can't take a writer seriously if they rely on it for laughs. I can take this playwright seriously, because this was some quality comedy.
As stated earlier, it wasn't a normal set up for the stage. This led to more believable interactions among actors. It also made it more believable when actors would enter and exit the stage. From my spot, the front door was my top left corner, the kitchen was bottom right, the place where the spirits entered and exited was my bottom left, and the corridor for the stairs was my top right. This was better than just right wing, left wing and some openings on an isometric set being entrances and exits. The raised seating helped with not having things obscured and made for more realistic prop setup. I wonder if it was meant to be shown that way or just adapted like a 3D movie. Oh well still really good way to tell the story.
I feel I should also talk about the ghost aspect. Since this is stage performance and not movie, there is no double exposure and other special effects to allow for ghost aspects like floating, invisible forces holding up objects, and human hands phasing through the ghost. The actors made it so that we believed we were seeing the story unfold with the perception of reality of the guy who could see the ghosts and not just people acting like they can't see someone right in front of them. They couldn't see the ghosts. As for the phasing, it didn't happen a lot and jokes were used to keep the ghosts from being sat on. At one point a ghost couldn't be seen yet by our main character but could be by another. The ghost at that point was hitting the character that could see it, and acted as if being hit by the ghost. Really believable.
Sound effects played an important part in this play. Like James Cameron uses 3D to it's full potential, this production used the surround sound to it's full extent. A record playing on the turn table didn't have it's sound projected out of all the speakers, only the one that was over the turn table. When the phone rang, it came from the speaker above the phone. When the doorbell rang it came from the speaker above the "front door" corner. This lead to a believable setting.
An interesting thing that helped us know who was a ghost and who was alive was that the ghosts wore all white and the living wore predominately black. I didn't pick up on this immediately but then I realized it and it made it really easy to know who was alive and who "passed on." I keep my reviews as clean as I can, and ghosts get offended by "deau...." no I will keep this a family review and say passed on. The clothing did through me off at this one point in the play, but I won't mention it for fear of spoilers. It was a cool way to tell it.
This is probably just part of theatre but I feel I should at least mention it. 2 of the characters smoke in the play, and at fist I thought it might just be a regular cigarette, until I realized that no matter how long they were lit they weren't getting any smaller. It wasn't until I heard a clinking when it hit an ash tray that I realized it was some kind of prop cigarette that doesn't burn and leave ashes everywhere. It did give off smoke because the actors did breathe smoke so it wasn't just sticks that look like cigarettes. The end also glowed with embers when they inhaled. It's probably not new, but it's cool.
If you have the chance to see it, I strongly recommend it. While I can't guarantee that the acting will be equally as good, the writing and story will stay the same and hopefully the experience will be equal to mine. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu bye.
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