You are finite, Zathras is finite. This..... is wrong tool.




Saturday, March 6, 2010

Why is no one wearing pants?


Or: My T.O.R.T. review 2010.

Bottom line: Cameron Wood is funny. Cameron was terrific as Puck. In fact, for the first half hour or so, before many of the other actors managed to calm down enough to cease being too self-conscious, he single-handedly saved the play.

The problem with TORT last year was that it was too long. The principal reason for this was the length and number of songs. While the thing is called the "Law School Musical," there were 25 songs this year. What this year's writing team managed to do well, though was to shorten many of the songs down to a single verse. This allowed the length to remain shorter while getting in all the songs. I'm pretty sure that most musicals have only about 10-15 songs in them, so when you have 25, you have to make them shorter to keep length down. If I had had the chance, I might have actually removed some of the songs and kept longer verses for the ones that stayed in, but it's hard to say without knowing all of the behind the scenes stuff.

I was expecting to see a tortured version of Shakespeare with bizarre word-plays and wooden acting to get A Midsummer Night's Dream to be a legal story. What I got was in some ways even more tortured than I expected, with the Oberon and Titania storyline seeming totally removed from the whole thing. I don't know if portions of the script were removed to shorten the play, but the whole of their story seemed tacked-on. (Granted, it has now been a good ten years since I saw/read the original, so I can't definitively say it wasn't down to the original story.) One thing that was well done with this crew, was that most of their songs were relatively short, which moved the story back to the more central action quickly.

The program did not specify who was the sound technician, but whoever they were seemed to have needed another rehearsal at the actual theatre, as they had difficulty switching to the right mics at times, resulting in lost verses to some of the songs early in the play. Overall, though the show was slow to start, but picked up very well and the second act was actually quite good.

Aside from Wood being terrific, Chris Luehr was excellent at overacting his role, perfectly portraying Peter Quince, leader of the Mechanicals to comedic affect, with numerous random Latin phrases thrown in. The rest of the TORT-within-a-TORT crew also was impressive. Evan Palenschat as Brock clearly needed a scene or two to settle into his role in front of the audience, but really did a terrific job in the end, and his number at the end of the first act was perfect.

My friend David Couillard, cast as the pompous Paul was clearly placed in the role because he needed to do no acting to pull it off. His bio proclaims that he prepared for the role by hushing people in the library, correcting people's misuse of "nauseous" and "literally," audibly sighing a lot" and other similarly pompous behavior. The only thing lacking from the bio was the last sentence "and otherwise being himself." David set a high bar for himself last year with the Thriller dance, but he didn't live up to it this year. His choreography was a little stiff; he knew exactly what to do, but wasn't fluid in his motions. Partly this was the character, but since I focused on him, it was noticeable. On the other hand, while the impressive Holly Overgaard, draped herself over him during her song, he was absolutely terrific, and he and Palenschat's number "500 Briefs" was probably the highlight of the second act.

I remember talking to Holly Overgaard about T.O.R.T. during an admitted student weekend, on the bus from the law school to downtown for a dinner, and she seemed enthused. I'm not taking credit for finding a lead for the last two years, but I'm sure glad that she has taken part.

A special mention must go to John Fink, who absolutely stole the final scene of Act I as "creepy 1L."

The choreography was well put together, and impressive with the "Elite Dancers" pulling off some amazing displays. I was particularly impressed by Joe Cappola, who managed to learn some difficult moves while also studying for the bar and working.

My final thought is that the show should have ended with Cameron's perfect delivery of Puck's final lines. The show is a musical, of course, but I think it would have been better to use the final musical reprise as a curtain call, instead of throwing it in after his lines. The finale of the play really was Puck's farewell, and having delivered it so well, it deserved to be the last thing before bows.

All in all, a memorable evening, more fun that It's a Wonderful Law School, and about the right length as well.

No comments:

Post a Comment