I sat through a performance of BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS last night, at an area university.
It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good, either.
The problem, I decided, was that these 18-21 year old students were playing either 14/15 year old or 40+ year olds. In any case, out of their acting range. The two best performances were given by the two who where playing characters closest to their own actual ages.
I realize that our schools can't always put on plays that have characters the same age as the performers, and part of their growing process as artists is stretching themselves, but in this particular case (and perhaps this is the fault of the director [a friend of mine]) the actors were not acting the part, but trying to show us how they thought a character would act.
Hm, that doesn't sound right. Okay, try this...
My biggest problem was with the "dad." Rather than simply delivering the lines as if he believed them, I felt he was trying too hard to deliver the lines the way he thought a 40 year old dad would deliver them. In other words, he wasn't thinking in terms of the character, he was thinking in terms of the audience and how he expected them to look at his character.
Whew. Does any of this make sense?
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3 comments:
It makes sense to me. I saw a high school performance of this play once, with a lot of the same problems you mention.
Wow. Seems kind of "racy" for a high school. I mean, the main character, a 15 year old boy, is just discovering his attraction to girls, talks about feeling his cousins chest as she hugs him, he drops his napkin at the dinner table to try and look up her skirt, and he and his older brother discuss masturbation (and his older brother mentions visiting a prostitute).
Yeah, they cut a lot of it.
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