Theater Week
It’s been a theater week. Last Sunday we drove north to The Village Theater to watch a performance of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Our granddaughter, Nora, age 11, had several small parts in the production, including a small singing part. The cast was all children, with the major roles all being taken by high school students. The choruses and ensembles were all grade school children. I was trying to imagine how one controlled that many school age kids, how they were rehearsed and how it was all put together. My own experience with the theater was directing a one-act play at a junior high where I taught. Good grief! That’s almost sixty years ago. Anyway, we were delighted to see Nora perform. After the matinee performance we went to a fine Italian restaurant along the Everett waterfront with son, Sean, daughter-in-law, Mary Rose, and Nora and her sister, Grace. I’m sure it won’t be long before we see Grace performing and we look forward to Nora’s future appearances.
This Sunday we attended the Burien Little Theater’s production of Christopher Fry’s The Lady’s Not for Burning. Burien is a small suburb of Seattle with a population of about 37,000. But the greater Seattle Theater has many many amateur theaters so there is a large cadre of actors to draw from. The actors in this production were uniformly good. The leads had very long speaking parts. It must be a heck of a play to memorize. The play has long been my favorite, but I had never seen a production of it. It involves Thomas Mendip, returned from the war in Flanders, who has seen so much of the frailties and foibles of mankind that he wishes to be hanged. He claims that he had murdered Skipps, the rag-and-bone man. Conversely, Jennet Jourdemayne, a young woman whose father was an alchemist and who follows in his footsteps, is accused of being a witch and is condemned to be burned. And, oh, how she wants to live. I’ve had a recording on LP of the original Broadway cast and have listened to it many times. Unfortunately this Sunday’s matinee was poorly attended. But I thoroughly enjoyed it.
This Sunday we attended the Burien Little Theater’s production of Christopher Fry’s The Lady’s Not for Burning. Burien is a small suburb of Seattle with a population of about 37,000. But the greater Seattle Theater has many many amateur theaters so there is a large cadre of actors to draw from. The actors in this production were uniformly good. The leads had very long speaking parts. It must be a heck of a play to memorize. The play has long been my favorite, but I had never seen a production of it. It involves Thomas Mendip, returned from the war in Flanders, who has seen so much of the frailties and foibles of mankind that he wishes to be hanged. He claims that he had murdered Skipps, the rag-and-bone man. Conversely, Jennet Jourdemayne, a young woman whose father was an alchemist and who follows in his footsteps, is accused of being a witch and is condemned to be burned. And, oh, how she wants to live. I’ve had a recording on LP of the original Broadway cast and have listened to it many times. Unfortunately this Sunday’s matinee was poorly attended. But I thoroughly enjoyed it.
1 Comments:
The community college's productions here are often poorly attended, but the big moneymaker of the year is the play which includes children from the area in the cast. Entire extended families attend. I asked the director about working with all those kids, and he said it wasn't too bad. And the attendance made it worth the trouble.
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