Major Barbara
Final Dress Rehersal
2-25-2010
“You can not have power for good without having power for evil.”
Well dear friends, it appears that I may be getting back to culture blogging. With the Pantree Owl Ep a week or so ago (the ambient track has been completed. V. Nice) Major Barbara this Week, and the Laramie Project at the end of this week, I am making a good start on making up for missing the V-week events. Theater blogging is even harder than music blogging. While I’ve mentioned before that I’ve a distinct lack of technical terms for talking about music,I am even worse off with the theater. At least in the case of music I have some experience creating it and a lot of time spent enjoying it. I enjoy the theater, but I seldom watch it, and reading plays inevitably bores me to sleep. (Similar to any presentation that is overwhelmingly dialogue.)
First things first, Major Barbara was written in 1905, and this particular presentation does some interesting things to bridge the century. The costuming is period, but instead of being period early 1900s, everyone is dressed in the fashion of the late 1960s It maintains the sense of the different that period costume would have given, without the steep temporal dislocation.
Also, the scene changes that started in the Undershaft Manor were done in the idiom of the play with the butler Morrison directing uniformed labour crews. (As an aside, the young lady on the stage crew was really cute.) This instead of the standard crew in blacks trying to be invisible.
I don’t know how much of this was Shawe, and how much was the actors/direction, but Adolphus and Andrew Undershaft totally dominated any scene they were both in. I’m not sure that it wasn’t just them having the best dialog, but they were incredible.
The women’s Salvation Army uniforms, particularly that of Jenny Hill, make me wish that capes and cloaks would come back into general style.
So, this play was written in 1905, the same year that Ayn Rand was born, and yet it has the most coherant objectivist screeds I’ve ever read, mostly from the industrialist Anderew Undershaft. On the other hand, Adolphus’ speeches near the end prefigure Malcom X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech. As do a few portions of Undershaft’s monologues. And we have, in Undershaft, a solid analysis of how to ne an objectivist industrialis and not end up with your head on a pike.
The play speaks to one of the key conundrums of activisim, the tension between the purity of cause and the effectiveness of your work. If you do any activisim at all, I urge you to catch a showing of this play, if not this presentation, then the next time you get a chance.
The set design for the arms factory was awesome.
A few minor issues, from the 5th row I almost couldn’t read the Undershaft Quotes: “if God gave man the hand, let not man withhold the sword.”, “all have the right to fight, none have the right to judge.” “to man the heaven, to heaven the victory.” “peace shall not prevail, save with a sword in her hand.” “nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it’s not done!” and “unashamed”
Also, and it was an aspect of the venue,personally, if you are going to allow concessions sales, allowing people to bring them into the theater seems better than not doing so.
All in all, a very good presentation of a clever script.
It is at the Ruth N Halls Theater in the Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center, Febuary 26, 27, and March 2-6 ay 7:30 with a 2 PM Matinee as well on the 6th. For more informationgo to theatre.indiana.edu
