Best hats!
Mar. 10th, 2004 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mojosmomI've just been to see Regina Taylor's Crowns at the Goodman Theatre. Of course, I wore a hat. But I won the "best hat" challenge by default as none of my friends wore one! Margaret had intended to, but forgot.
Oh, you want to hear about the play! It was great. It's not a plot-driven play, rather a series of vignettes, with dialogue taken from the interviews in the book, linked through the thread of a teen-aged girl from New York, who is sent to South Carolina to live after her brother is shot and killed. Yolanda learns about faith, culture and connection from the "women in church hats" through their stories and through their holding her up. However, I thought that story of Yolanda was not sufficiently woven into the fabric of the play and that the device should either be made stronger, or eliminated altogether.
The cast was a knock-out. It's a hugely musical play, with a lot of church music, and some dancing, and the voices and movement were splendid. The one male actor actually plays several roles, and John Steven Crowley did an amazing job differentiating among them. (You need to understand that this is an hour and 45 minute play with no intermission, and all the actors are on stage all the time.) He is one of those really big men who moves with real grace. And, oh my, the musicians. Two - one on piano, the other on percussion, guitar, harmonica. They were placed on either side of the stage, but were a show in and of themselves - especially the percussionist, David Pleasant. He was so into it!
Oh, you want to hear about the play! It was great. It's not a plot-driven play, rather a series of vignettes, with dialogue taken from the interviews in the book, linked through the thread of a teen-aged girl from New York, who is sent to South Carolina to live after her brother is shot and killed. Yolanda learns about faith, culture and connection from the "women in church hats" through their stories and through their holding her up. However, I thought that story of Yolanda was not sufficiently woven into the fabric of the play and that the device should either be made stronger, or eliminated altogether.
The cast was a knock-out. It's a hugely musical play, with a lot of church music, and some dancing, and the voices and movement were splendid. The one male actor actually plays several roles, and John Steven Crowley did an amazing job differentiating among them. (You need to understand that this is an hour and 45 minute play with no intermission, and all the actors are on stage all the time.) He is one of those really big men who moves with real grace. And, oh my, the musicians. Two - one on piano, the other on percussion, guitar, harmonica. They were placed on either side of the stage, but were a show in and of themselves - especially the percussionist, David Pleasant. He was so into it!
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Date: 2004-03-11 09:53 am (UTC)Wow, MJM is in a bad mood today! :)
Shen- Glad I was wrong and the play was good.
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Date: 2004-03-11 10:37 am (UTC)However, you know how these days you always get a pre-show announcement "Please turn off all cell phones and pagers, and unwrap those candies now"? They added, "and, ladies, please remove your crowns. We'll admire them after the show"!