Well part of going to different culturally relevant events is I'll see some good ones and some bad ones. Sadly tonight was of the latter variety.
Tonight I went to see the Rude Mechanicals' production of what they called the Holy Harlots. It consisted of two short pieces, one called The Fall and Redemption of Mary, by Hrothsvitha, a 10th century German nun, and Mary Magdalene, by an anonymous 15th century English playwright. Both dealt with the exact same issue of a woman named Mary (in the first play, she had no real significance, she was just named Mary) falling into sin then redeeming herself after being taught the error of her ways. There was really no need for both pieces since they handled the same plot and elements. Seriously, both followed the exact same story arc, just with different circumstances. Granted Magdalene was at least an interpretation of biblical history, which would have made Mary irrelevant.
Moving on, I'd like to go over why I didn't like the play. I've been to several Rudes' shows now and I can't really say I'm surprised by the acting at this point. I'm sorry to say that the skill of the actors in these shows has never really compared to other works I've seen at Shepherd. It's always stuck around a high school level.
The acting aside what really stood out to me was the set, or rather, the lack of one. An ambiguous backdrop painted multiple shades of gray with a curtain in the middle served as the background for every scene in the two plays. A couple of painted boxes added more context to the scenes, but it didn't do enough to really pull me into the action. Lighting changes were considered set changes, where the lights focusing on RED meant that we were in Hell, and lights focusing on WHITE meant we were in Heaven. Done with some more finesse and maybe something else to sell the point, this could have been very interesting and artistic, but relying on it entirely only made it seem cheap and lazy.
Now to my biggest issue with this play. As far as I can tell the objective of the Rude Mechanicals is to bring forth medieval era plays and make them relevant to contemporary audiences. This can prove to be a daunting task I'm sure, but with the right people behind it, this endeavor could easily be accomplished. What I saw tonight was a butchery and frankenstein-like mash-up of contemporary humor, college humor, and classical work. Admittedly, the first piece had little of this, but instead involved a sickening amount of repetition in dialogue and long monologues where the actors just stood there doing nothing. It was incredibly boring, but I'll give it points for being consistent throughout.
Magdalene on the other hand started throwing me off at the beginning by introducing rhyming lines and a rhythmic method of speaking only to toss it out on the next couple of lines. Going back and forth between the two methods severely broke my illusions and kept me out of the play. The shoehorning of a choreographed dance sequence and a short rap full of foul language would have made much more sense in a modern play, but in something like this it seemed desperate and ridiculous. One of the characters, played by one of the only entertaining actors in the group, adopted a southern plantation owner style accent while heading a temple of Jupiter. There was no seamless transition to make things work on my level, it was just a dumbing down that ended up killing the whole experience. The complete lack of consistency did nothing to help with the poor acting, bad set design, and boring dialogue.
I personally know a handful of the members of the Rudes, and as I've said I've seen their other work. I know they're better than what I saw tonight. I hope that other people echo my concerns so that they can learn and improve on what they have.
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