Perhaps this is a summer of recovery - of remembering who I am and what I am supposed to be doing .... at least for the moment.
This weekend the Fenix Theatre Company opened with a well conceived, trimmed and executed production of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" at the wading pool in Deering Oaks.
I've seen it twice now - I tend to see such shows over and over, it's like doing tango, or taking an eccentric acting workshop, or writing music - such events completely take me over and I feel like I'm breathing oxygen, safe at home. Very strange, very intense but there's no help for it - that's how I react.
It's pleasing to hear the world "Milan" pronounced correctly - as "MILL-an" rather than "mi-LAHN". It's a dumb detail but the kind of thing that gets in the way of the language and freezes my enjoyment of the show. It has to be almost sung, or at least free of "line reading poetics".
Mostly the actors just freakin' went for it.
If you look at the Facebook pix you'll see another reason why it was such a great time - there are entranced kids in the backgrounds of almost half the shots. It's a thing I noticed back in the days of MSDI and CTM - with the possible exception of King Lear (who's enclosed playing space made it impossible for people to "drift by") - there were always kids dropping in to watch - one even got dragged into "Midsummer Night's Dream" as the changling boy - and went on to do theatre in school.
I think Fenix theatre is doing something that I wish CTM would bring itself to do again - take theatre into the spaces where people - and kids are people too - where people live and play.
CTM has that as part of its legacy, Reba and I have talked about it. The idea falls into the category of "stuff it would be nice to look at on some distant day but only can be talked about now".
But it could be done.
You could tell that two of the cast members were Equity players. Everyone else very much held their own (some voices seemed to need a bit of open throat focussing - no sound system to lean on, and that had a definite effect). The show was very much "in the round" in the wading pool - just an open space that the actors used as seen fit. Music cues were simple, on a boombox (not that I'd do much better writing it cold).
All told it was a fun, great experience. There's a lot more that I can share at some point in the future. For now, suffice it to say that I heard a voice inside me, answering a voice from outside me, and it's a conversation whose power and beneficence I'd forgot.
Just voice, words, action and a completely honest set of characters. It was exactly what theatre should be. I am very curious to see how this plays out.
