Saturday, April 24, 2010

PYGMALION Opens at the Beaudoin Theatre

I love G.B.Shaw, the language, the humor, the pace -- but he is very difficult for Americans, the language, the pace, the dialects. Siena's students faced these difficulties with aplumb, thanks to their work and the admirable directing of Paul Ricciardi.  Anyone from Foy's faculty row knows how much vocal training went into those performances. I guess training is the key word here; this production is all about craft.

Audiences might not realize that our theatre program is not about providing entertainment for the college -- although it does that.  It's about training our students in the crafts and skills of theatre. It's about  education both of Creative Arts students and the college as a whole.  Ricciardi's Pygmalion did just that.

The 2 hour + performance sped by, carried along by the sense of the students "getting it right," the beauty of the costumes and lighting, and the balletic scene changes. The lace scrim in the background, the awesome pink sheers gliding in the scene changes (particularly evocative in Mrs. Higgins  hands), the staging with its "viewpoints" technique, all kept us in the delicious ambiguity of theatre. We believe the world of the actors, yet at the same time appreciate that it is all a fiction, a performance.

The first seconds of this production set the mood. We were immediately in rainy London, on the streets, with people rushing by (I was in the front row and felt immediacy of the action right at my knees). The silhouettes of scene changes turned functionality into shadow play, particularly evocative against the lace backdrop.  The set articulated the actors' emotional positions and changes, arranged in planes that each  functioned to place our imaginations in the right spot in the story: from the immediacy of that first scene at audience level with characters rushing left and right, to the main stage where the "sets" played left and right, to the central French doorway that became the frame for change. The back passage, again for left and right movement, visually and imaginatively supported the whole. It was a metaphor for change in the characters. It is there that we first see Higgins, still, silhouetted, observing.  And while we watch him talk, talk, talk throughout the course of the play, we see that, while he can effect change in Eliza, he remains stubbornly fixed in his temper and temperament, the Dr. House of 1914.  But then, do we want him to change?

The whole ensemble is to be commended for exploiting the entire space Shaw allows: from the staging that leaves no area or volume unattended (Leon Battista Alberti would have approved) to the costumes, including the very pertinent hats, that were based on historical research. Those women bobbies during the First World War were the equivalent of the Rosie the Riveters in the Second. They substituted for the men in the trenches. The suit of the newly rich Doolittle outfitted with mother-of-pearl  buttons from the lapels to the cuffs was just what such fellows wore when they were dressed to the nines. "Pearlies" they were called. The ladies' costumes reminded me of those Oscar Kirchner Berlin Street Scene of 1913 (NY MOMA, below).


This is college theatre where attention to significant detail is all important for the education of collaborating students and for the college community itself. That the cast and crew could bring this all off as a unity, without getting tripped up on egos, gimmicks or scholarship, shows that we are indeed a maturing theatre program.   Thanks to all involved.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Paul Ricciardi Wins Teaching Award


Back cover of the most recent American Theatre Magazine. See Paula and Siena in the right column.

Paul Ricciardi, CREA's  new Assistant Professor of Acting in our Theatre Program, is a recipient of a 2009 National Teaching Artist Grant for voice and speech..  This is from the

A Look from Tel-Aviv

Sunday, November 15, 2009

THE FAMILY THAT PLAYS TOGETHER . . .




Even a wicked stepmother has a mother (Laurie Detenbeck) and a father (Ralph Blasting).

INTO THE WOODS ENTHUSIASTICALLY PERFORMED, ENTHUSIASTICALLY RECEIVED




The Creative Arts Committee and Dean Ralph Blasting (aka Mr. Mysterious) put on a sugar feast to celebrate the opening of the 2009 Siena production of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. Not-so-candid photos of the party:





Director Tony Rivera and Stage Manager Laurie Detenbeck
The Not-So-Charming Prince and Red-eyed Riding Hood




Director Rivera and CREA champion, Camille Hoheb, Chair Creative Arts Committee

TREES GROWTH IN FOY LOBBY


The production outgrew the space in the Beaudoin Theatre. Rehearsals moved well apace last week and so the construction of the proscenium trees moved out to the lobby. It was great to watch.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

OCTOBER MEETING WITH STUDENTS: PORTFOLIO!


CREA faculty met with CREA majors October 14. We wanted to greet our majors as a group, let them know what we have to offer, and also, what they need to do to prepare for the world they will enter when they graduate.  Key innovation was the portfolio expectation of all Freshmen and Sophomores with suggestion that upper classmen seek guidance in preparing one for their next step. Students were advised to seek counsel with their advisors and CREA faculty for planning their 4-year programs.  When asked what advice upper classmen could give the lower classmen: Plan your schedule well ahead of time so you fit all the courses you need into your 39 hours for the major. PLAN, PLAN, PLAN was the take-home message.