Memphis Assignment

Memphis is a musical play set in 1950s Memphis during a time of racial problems.  Specifically set in Beale Street, it represents an era of underrepresented and hidden black musicians forced to play in poor bars.  The music was generally worthy of popular acclaim, but was ignored due to being played by African Americans.  That is the setting when a white man discovers the music and is more forgiving of skin color.

The lighting design in Memphis by Howell Binkley was frankly incredible.  There aren't enough ways to praise its magnificence.  It used the large Jesse Auditorium as it was able to make whatever part of the stage they wanted pitch black.  That goes a long way towards allowing scenery changes, an easy fixation for the audience, and a really sweet visual.  (Aesthetics aren't that important, but they certainly factor into one's enjoyment of a play.)  Once specific lighting choice stuck out to me though I suppose I could just reference the entire play.  In setting for the bar, the props itself weren't what made the bar convincing as a 1950s underground blues bar, though they certainly did the job.  What made the bar so utterly realistic was the lighting of it.  It had a blue tint that colored the scenes with the sort of stereotypical underground bar.  It looks shady, and yet alluring.  The lights clue the audience into the bar almost by itself.  Another great lighting designs was the opening scene when the white DJ plays the white song.  The entire stage is black except for the radio setting.  Since that was the only thing the audience was able to see thanks to the rest of the stage being pitch black, it felt more realistic than it probably should have been.

Another necessary aspect of the play to compliment is the costume design by Paul Tazewell.  Being born well after the setting, I can only speak as to my general idea of what 1950s Memphis would have looked like.  The costumes more than accomplished in that regard.  The black characters seemed to dress in snappy, extremely high fashion.  One complain about that is that given the character's financial status, the clothing choices were well out of the price range in my opinion.  These clothes were very sharp, expensive clothes and in the play, Delray actually mentions the unsuccessful nature of his bar.  It's a small complaint and relatively unimportant.  They also seemed to really emphasize the difference in clothing choices between the black characters and the white ones.  The white characters outside of Huey all dressed in extremely preppy, higher class clothes.  A specific example was characters who wore polos with khaki pants.  The business men were dressed in the same vein as the Mad Men characters - that's not a complaint, just an observation.  One completely unverified thing is that the costumes seem a bit unrealistic as well.  It strikes me the same way as how certain shows or movies nowadays show 80s fashion, but only pick the most outrageous things that most people didn't actually were.  I got that sense from the clothing designs.  It didn't bother me and I would never write that in an actual review, but that's just the feeling I got.

Lastly, the acting and singing of the play were top-notch.  It's a little tough to pick out specific examples given the position of my seat, but I'll attempt.  Ramond Thomas as Delray effectively portrayed a proud, cynical man who has lived life in a racist culture and has perhaps ironically decided what his views are and won't change them.  His comic timing was precise as none of the jokes in the play he made - mostly about a white man stepping out of bounds - weren't original, but Thomas made them funny.  Jasmin Richardson was another actor who was good from my distance.  She sold me as a sweet, somewhat naive woman who still has hopes for her future.  Lastly, Joey Elrose plays Huey by creating an animated, slow yet endearing lead.  Of course, the acting and singing go hand in hand so I would be remiss not to mention that every single person who sings has an amazing voice.

Mini-Review
Memphis, a nationally touring Broadway musical, provides audiences with infectious songs, a gripping story, and an introspective look at racial tensions in the 1950s.  Set in Memphis, a poor, uneducated white man happens upon an underground blues bar on Beale Street.  He is so infatuated with the music of his soul, that he seems to be able to ignore that the bar is an all-black bar.  Part of this acceptance is due to his love for a patron of the bar, Felicia.  He makes it his personal mission to get Felicia on the radio.  He is met with some resistance from the owner of the bar and Felicia's sister and caretaker, Delray.  The sets are intricate and seamlessly moved from scene to scene helped immensely by the fantastic lighting of the play, which frequently lit only a single part of the stage while the rest was pitch black.  Every single actor can sing their hearts out and deploy dancing moves that manage to surprise the audience.  Overall, it is a very satisfying and enjoyable play.

The Summer in Gossensass Assignment

The Summer in Gossensass is a play set in 1891 London about an actress obsessed with bringing the play "Hedda Gabler" to life.  She becomes infatuated with the main character of the play, Hedda, and her desire is to portray her as nothing less than a representation of a new way for women in the world.  The entirety of the play takes place in the home of Elizabeth Robins as she strives to create this play by whatever means.

Two casting choices by the director, Barbara Salvadori-Heritage, stood out.  The first was for the main character Elizabeth Robins, played by Hannah Atencio.  It's clear that Salvadori-Heritage picked an actress who could effectively display her emotions.  Atencio certainly was able to do that.  The problem was that she couldn't show her emotions in a realistic way.  She needed to overact.  Perhaps overacting in the play was kind of the point, but her overacting tended to give notice that she WAS acting, not playing a character.  She wasn't the only one overacting, lending me to believe that was the direction.  Kelsey Clark, who played Marion Lea, also overacted, but she tended to tone down her performance and I bought that she was that character.  She wasn't necessarily overacting, she was the snobby character who emphasized moreso than the average person.  Clark was a good piece of casting, because she was able to do what the director required while I think Robins didn't.

The staging of the play seemed poor from my perspective.  By the table, there were two chairs placed in the worst possible way.  Whenever the two characters sitting at the chairs talked to each other, I ended up not seeing either character's face.  The character closest to me had her back to me while she faced the other character when they had a conversation.  The other character was completely blocked by the person closest to me.  Thus, it was the equivalent for me of watching a play where both characters talked with their backs faced to me.  This also happened more than just once in the play.  In the part of the play where the characters speak about how the English rights to the play "Hedda Gabler" have been sold, there was another scene where a person was speaking and I was blocked by the placement of the character.  Overall, the director was not able to take into account that the audience was viewing the play from three sides and adjusting accordingly in my opinion.

I could see what Salvadori-Heritage was trying to do in her direction of the actors.  Sometimes it worked, other times it didn't.  An instance where it didn't work was mentioned above in Hannah Atencio's acting of Elizabeth Robins.  I believe that Atencio accomplished what Salvadori-Heritage wanted her to do, but I don't think she quite pulled it off.  In the first scene, when she is seen pacing the room before she ultimately kills herself, she overacts.  She emphasizes her every movement, she places unnecessary emphasis on her words, she tries to hard to show that she's in grief.  She basically has a flair for the dramatic as if an audience is watching her.  I think Kelsey Clark better achieved this by being slightly more subtle and realizing when to emphasize her words and when not.  One actor who's direction I appreciated was Dylan Bainter, who seemed to be cast and used to his talents.  He successfully portrayed a too smart for his own good, clumsy know-it-all.  His head seemed perpetually slightly raised as if to portray an air of dignity that he had no business having.  His physical comedy was surprisingly convincing as well.  He didn't telegraph that he was about to fall or trip.

Review
Director Barbara Salvadori-Heritage had a very clear, distinct vision for this play.  Unfortunately, she did not pay as close of attention to the staging of the actors who frequently ended up having conversations that invariably blocked out a whole side of the audience.  Her decision to have the characters overact in order to emphasize emotion or snobbery was not a bad decision, but her casting of Hannah Atencio did not help as her requirements seemed to be out of her range as an actress.  Overall, despite a clear vision, the direction of the play could have been better.