Crititque of The Produciton The Fantasticks *Works Cited Not Included If there is truly tradition to be found among the great theatres both on and off Broadway, then certainly the Sullivan Street Playhouse and its long running production of The Fantasticks rates as one of the most celebrated of New York theatrical traditions. Maintaining its place as the longest running production Off Broadway, The Fantasticks remains an enchanting and insightful tale of both young love and bitter disillusionment. It also reminds one, in this age of spectacle and the mega-musical, how powerful and truly inspiring theatre itself can be. Clearly, one of the great strengths of this production and a large part of its appeal for audiences over the last four decades lies in the fact that both the story and the style of presentation compliment each other so completely. Here we find the non-essentials are stripped away, and we are left to rely simply on the imagination of both the audience and the performers to create a magical evening. The story of The Fantasticks, written by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt and also based upon Edmond Rostand's play Les Romanesques, concerns itself with the pairing of two young lovers, appropriately enough, the Boy and the Girl. As their story begins to unfold, as told to us by the Narrator (El Gallo), we quickly come to recognize both the Boy and Girl as specific characters with specific concerns, but at the same time we see them as every boy and girl that have ever fallen in love. We see the Boy's unwavering devotion and the Girl's romantic idealism and even though their fathers have built a wall between them, the zealous young lovers will let nothing stand in the way of their passion. Just as the story might b... ... middle of paper ... ...larly impressive was John Savarese playing the part of the Narrator with an engaging charm and likeability that makes his calculated betrayal of the Girl all the more cruel. There is much room to play El Gallo as an unsympathetic manipulator, but Mr. Savarese finds a way to balance his character's actions with compassion, which makes for some wonderfully poignant moments, especially in the signature tune "Try to Remember." Obviously, I found much to like and little to fault in this current incarnation of The Fantasticks. I believe it works on so many levels because it chooses to tell a simple story simply. We can draw from it what we want. Like the characters themselves, we can choose to see what we want to see. Though we all know "happily ever after" seldom is, there is indeed a kind of "Happy Ending" feeling after seeing this production of The Fantasticks.
Ludwig Tieck’s novella, Eckbert the Fair, presents a certain ambiguity of moral values. The story meets a tragic ending where the main couple of the fairytale, Eckbert and Bertha, die as punishment for their crimes of betrayal, theft, and murder. However, an uneasy feeling of injustice remains about the punishment despite the clarity of their guilt. The tale itself strongly resembles a tragic play defined by Aristotle, but the narrative deviates from the structure of standard tragedy. In effect, the unique set-up of the narrative makes the evil deeds seem ultimately inevitable. The structure of the novella helps justifying the crimes, causing the distinction between the good and the bad to become unclear. In this paper, I will discuss this unique structure of the tale to analyze how this uneasy feeling about the ending emerges.
Ever heard of a story that sings of the “Angel of Music” and the “Phantom of the Opera”? A tale that once you have listened to the sweet melody that you will realized that you've pasted the “Point of No Return”? This love triangle has captivated multitudes ever since the 1910 original Phantom of the Opera was published in France by Monsieur Leroux, although most story lovers recall the musical of the same name by Andrew Lloyd Webber or the motion picture adaption. Although this story has been entertaining people for over a century, in this new era have prerecorded voices and movements begun to overshadow the talented performers of live theater? Although “The lavish screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera (2005) only deepened the damage” of the dislike of musicals made into film “with non-stars in the leads and an unimaginative production,”(Musical),which version, the live performance or the film, makes the story more attractive? To answer these questions, permit this essay to analyze two methods of storytelling: 2011 live performance Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall and the 2005 film, and decide if music and story lovers everywhere have too “turned from true beauty”.
Musical theatre is a type of theatrical performance combining music, dance, acting and spoken dialogue. Written by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, ‘West Side Story’ is a classic American musical based on William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’. The through-composed score and lyrics are used to portray different characters and their cultures, the rivalry between the Jets and Sharks, and the emotions felt as the story progresses. This essay will be exploring the music and how effective the score is in realising the world and characters of the musical. Furthermore, it will discuss how Bernstein and Sondheim relate characters’ diverse ethnicities to particular musical ideas and motifs.
When you think “The Phantom of the Opera,” you think a brilliant musical, on Broadway but the story begins way before then. The well-loved story went through many different stages before it became a musical. Shall we look at the various ways this timeless tale has been told over the years?
Kenrick, John. Musical Theatre A History. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2008. Print.
From the beginning of fiction, authors have constantly exploited the one topic that is sure to secure an audience: love. From the tragic romance of Tristan and Isolde to the satirical misadventures in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, literature seems obsessed with deciphering the mysteries of affection. The concept most debated is the question of where the line falls between lust and love and what occurs when the two are combined, and few portray it more clearly than Edmund Rostand in his French drama Cyrano de Bergerac. The influence of fickle physical attraction and deep romantic love on each other are explored by the interactions of the four main characters: De Guiche, Christian, Roxane, and Cyrano.
“Romeo and Juliet” is a tale of misunderstood youths who fall in ‘love.’ Romeo and Juliet undoubtedly believed they were in love. Circumstances surrounding their unprecedented meeting, individual lives, call into question the validity of their love. To the rest of their world Romeo and Juliet’s connection seems superficial. Their age and immaturity leads the protagonists to the misconception that their love is monumental and unique. A complex combination of circumstances, fate and the protagonists themselves, ultimately contribute to the most controversial question ever asked in one of Shakespeare’s most famous works.
When I first watched Chicago at the movie theater, I was not fully satisfied. I wanted more, so I went back to get some and watched it six more times with different friends and family members! Last summer during a visit to my native Mexico City, I had the opportunity to watch drag queens perform several numbers from the movie-musical. They did an amazing job, without surpassing the outstanding performances of the actors in the film. Last year, I visited NYC for the first time and indulged in the rows of the Ambassador theatre experiencing Chicago, the Broadway musical, and because I had seen the movie many times before, I knew all the songs and dances by heart. I loved it, but it was actually the movie that influenced me to become a “Chicago fan.” The movie is based on the 1996 Chicago revival of the original musical version of 1975. It was thrilling knowing that the making of the musical into a mainstream production would increase its accessibility and widen its distribution into all the corners of the world; now there is no excuse for people not to experience Chicago, and though not everyone can go to Broadway to see it, just about anyone can indulge themselves in this dazzling movie in the comfort of their homes. In addition to a fantasy world of singing, dancing and Vaudeville, the film also provides a narrative that is explicitly presented through Roxie’s point of view, creating a counter human side to Roxie’s fantasy world so that the audience can easily identify and engage. Chicago is a must see film for anyone who likes to spoil themselves with an outstanding award-winning musical composed of a catchy plot, truly superb acting, commendable direction, and a clever soundtrack.
Theatre provides us with a mirror of the society within which we live in and where the conflicts we experience in life are acted out on stage before us. In the space of a few hours, we participate in a story where the facets of life unfold before our eyes and anything can happen, be it tragic, serious or hilarious! On the stage real people take on characters and we can identify with the emotions and actions as they happen and share the experience in real time. When this miracle occurs, when the audience and those on stage breathe a exactly the same time, there is a unique feeling of a fulfilled desire, which transforms the theatre into an immortal place: a combination of ecstasy and empathy for the human experience -- an inspiring event!
Love is commonly expressed through many forms of literature. Affection is compared and contrasted to many different things, in many different forms. Two pieces of literature that can be correlated to each other are Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess. These two remarkable dramatic monologues portray love in a very odd way by the killing of their lovers. Each of the speakers in the stories have different motives, but ultimately executed the same deed. Porphyria’s Lover and My Last Duchess are two pieces of literature with many similarities, as well as differences.
William Shakespeare presents his story of a midsummer night’s dream as a play. Within this play is another play named “Pyramus and Thisby“. The two similar stories share the same basic idea of how the course of true love never seems to run smoothly. Chaos seems to be normalcy in both of these stories, and although they seem vastly different, they share the same quality of blocked love and eventual serenity. These shared qualities of love show how the theme of “Pyramus and Thisby” relates to the main story of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
On stage, these points were, looking at the opinions of a majority of both the audiences and the critics, presented successfully by Brook and the cast he worked with. From the prison guards who loomed in the background, clothed in butcher aprons and armed with clubs, to the half-naked Marat, slouched in a tub and covered in wet rags, forever scratching and writing, to the small group of singers, dressed and painted up as clowns, to the narcoleptic but murderous Charlotte Corday, Weiss and Brook offered a stage production that both engaged and amazed the audience, while at the same time forced them to question their role as the audience; no better exemplified than at the very end of the play, where the inmates, standing menacingly at the edge of the stage, actually begin to applaud the very people who applaud their performance, aggravating and confusing some, but forcing most t...
“The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation,” says Stella Adler. Theater is unique and intriguing because it blends literary and visual arts to tell a story. Before Theater 10, I viewed theater on the surface level: cheesy plot lines with dramatic scenarios for entertainment purposes. Throughout the course, I have learned what it means to appreciate theater, such as understanding Brechtian and Chinese theatre; however, I believe understanding theater’s ability to convey crucial historical and social messages, such as in the production of RENT, is more relevant and important for theater appreciation.
Two of the greatest masters of British literature, Shakespeare and Chaucer, tended to look to the classics when searching for inspiration. A lesser-known example of this lies in an ancient tale from Greece about two star-crossed lovers. There are many variations on the names of these lovers, but for the purpose of solidarity, they shall henceforth be referred to as “Troilus and Criseyde” for Chaucer and “Troilus and Cressida” for Shakespeare. Chaucer’s “Troilus and Criseyde” offers up a classic tale of love that is doomed, whereas Shakespeare’s “Troilus and Cressida” is not only tragic but also biting in its judgment and representation of characters. This difference may be due to the differences in time periods for the two authors, or their own personal dispositions, but there can be no denying the many deviations from Chaucer’s work that Shakespeare employs. Shakespeare’s work, by making the characters and situations more relatable, builds upon Chaucer’s original work, rather than improving it or shattering it.
Being apart of the theatre community here in Port Angeles, I’ve always wondered where theatre came from, how it changed and influenced people throughout the ages. Not only the audience sitting there watching a character come to life right in front of their eyes but how it also changes the actors onstage. Performing and watching others perform, puts a thrill in your heart that cannot be replaced by any other rush in the world. How could something so fun be so meaningful and influential, I am going to tap about the evolution of theatre throughout the years, telling you about significant playwrights in that time period and how they used their sources to produce an amazing production