Chris
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Jul 4, 1997
- Messages
- 6,788
Well,
while the angel crashing through the roof part has been done in some settings well, the stage directions are such that a vast portion of the audience doesn't really get the jist of what's going on effectively until after the fact. This is just a matter of the way most stages are laid out and the need to pull off the scene transitions.
Part of stagecraft, I have always felt, is to effectively use the whole of the stage and allow the audience to feel as though maybe they are seeing something someone else doesn't see or see it differently. However, in most staging of Angels, the play is done in such a way that too much of the stage area is left inanimate for too long a period of time and it tends to feel "scrunched" up. Even plays like "Waiting for Godot" manage, through eye movements and gestures, to envelope a stage. When Angels really takes over the stage, it does so fantastically; but in other moments it feels unduly claustrophobic; whereas a tight stage can feel intimate, and there are moments in the staging of Angels where that is true, there are other moments where the tight staging simply seems like bad direction rather then plan. Some moments, like the flying boy, are done to great effect, but too mcuh of the play feels as though it needs to open up in order to better allow the audience to handle the dialog.
This is not a bag on the play, but rather, that the script leaves wide open most of the stage direction, and I think a lot of the stage direction tends to go in a direction I do not personally enjoy.
while the angel crashing through the roof part has been done in some settings well, the stage directions are such that a vast portion of the audience doesn't really get the jist of what's going on effectively until after the fact. This is just a matter of the way most stages are laid out and the need to pull off the scene transitions.
Part of stagecraft, I have always felt, is to effectively use the whole of the stage and allow the audience to feel as though maybe they are seeing something someone else doesn't see or see it differently. However, in most staging of Angels, the play is done in such a way that too much of the stage area is left inanimate for too long a period of time and it tends to feel "scrunched" up. Even plays like "Waiting for Godot" manage, through eye movements and gestures, to envelope a stage. When Angels really takes over the stage, it does so fantastically; but in other moments it feels unduly claustrophobic; whereas a tight stage can feel intimate, and there are moments in the staging of Angels where that is true, there are other moments where the tight staging simply seems like bad direction rather then plan. Some moments, like the flying boy, are done to great effect, but too mcuh of the play feels as though it needs to open up in order to better allow the audience to handle the dialog.
This is not a bag on the play, but rather, that the script leaves wide open most of the stage direction, and I think a lot of the stage direction tends to go in a direction I do not personally enjoy.