05 February 2007

I Love My Job...Revisited

Aquila Theatre came to the DWT last Friday, Saturday & today. They are a fantastic company of British and American actors who do the classics. Last year they did Hamlet & Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and this year they did Canterbury Tales and Romeo & Juliet.

Canterbury Tales were quite good, but R&J was superb! I have never seen one so good. What is the best about this particular production is that there are 6 actors, and the audience picks who plays who. Saturday's production had a woman as Romeo, a woman as Juliet (there are only 2 women in the company) and men as Lady Capulet and Nurse. All played multiple parts. I know the play well and I still cried at the end. I was in awe of the mastery of character and language these actors possess.

It was all very minimal (as you would guess with only 6 actors) and just perfect. The set was a 20 foot wooden octagon center stage and black chairs on the sides of the stage with props and and costumes (natural colored muslin pieces over black boots, black pants and black poets shirts). The balcony scenes were so well done. The actors delivered all the lines down stage with Romeo farther down stage than Juliet, who was only 6 inches higher but had a chair to use. I never for a minuted doubted that they were gazing into each other's eyes.

And I got to watch it and get paid, too.

Life is good

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