Thursday, April 12, 2012

A little DC play going!

Since the last missive, we ran off to Washington, D.C. to visit with son Andy and daughter-in-law Sarah -- and, of course, see a couple of plays.

Last Friday night, we were able to see Arena Stage's production of Eugene O'Neill's sole comedy (and even at that, there were a few down moments), "Ah, Wilderness." While the three of us who attended generally agreed that it won't be on our list of top 25 favorite plays, for me, it was still a fine evening. Many of the plays I read and admired in my youth have not been frequently presented in productions I could see. But now "Long Day's Journey into Night," "Wilderness," "Touch of the Poet" and, most memorably, "The Iceman Cometh" have been checked off my must-see list. (I've seen several very good "Moon for the Misbegotten" productions now.) I thought they did a fine job with this particular play, and it was a pleasure to sit through even if not the greatest script ever written.

Then, on Saturday afternoon, we went to see some of Andy's work - he was lighting designer for the Adventure Theatre's production of "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."

When I see we got to see "some" of Andy's work, that would be accurate. We were unaware that we were going to be attending a special-needs performance, which is a fine idea indeed to allow those children to experience theater. No problem there. But if you're going to see the full scope of a lighting design, as we had planned to do, it's not the best plan. For very good reasons, special effects such as strobe lights are left out, and house lights are left on throughout. We had a good time, but not really the full experience.

There was also this one actress who either didn't know where her special light was, or didn't care, and some less-than-enthusiastic performances in general, and well, it could have been better. But we got there!

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