Docu-drama as theater

posted by Jeff | Sunday, March 2, 2008, 12:31 AM | comments: 0

Tonight we went to see A Nightmare of Crime at Diana's undergrad alma mater, Baldwin-Wallace. It was written and directed by one of her professors, after researching the terror that happened at Auschwitz.

I'm not a theater academic (unless you count the year I spent with it as my minor in college), so the only opinions I have are generally those that come out of what I feel. I heard a lot of people after the show saying how powerful and good the show was, but I have to admit I felt a little indifferent about it. That style of story telling, the dramatized documentary, I don't think translates that well to stage. I think it's an important subject matter, with powerful themes and a dreadful reminder of the evil humans are capable of (and the courage they're capable of, for that matter), but I just had some issues with the format of it. In trying to tell such a broad story, it's hard to get really engaged and invested in it, especially with something so horrible going on.

Understand that I'm not totally dissing it either. I think it takes some balls to even try something like that, and with a sold-out show, I'm not the only one who thinks so. The female lead I thought was pretty good, as was one of the Sonderkommando (the Jews charged with "disposing" of other Jews). Video screens were used with stills, historic film and some stuff they shot themselves, and that worked pretty well. The set was beautiful, situated lengthwise between the seating, with the electric barbed wire fences behind each side. The lighting and makeup was interesting too, designed to cast a gray and dark tone to it (though some color should've been used to compensate for the yellow color temperature of the lamps when dim).

It's hard to be really critical of any live performance, I guess because live performance is still such a wonderful thing to see compared to TV or film. I mean, that's why I keep seeing Blue Man Group. I loved Cirque du Soleil's Delirium too (less circus freaks, more music, apparently not touring the US this year). Heck, even the community theater production of Big River that Diana and I saw on an early date wasn't bad.

I don't know what we'll see in Vegas. We pretty much decided to just wing it instead of planning it out.


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