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[Pittsburgh] Metamorphoses
Last week a coworker of Dani's was enthusing about Pittsburgh Public Theatre's Metamorphoses, so he asked if I wanted to see it. After Googling the show to confirm that we were talking about Ovid (-es) and not Kafka (-is), I said sure. We went Sunday afternoon.
I had wondered how they would stage this, and the answer turned out to be: mostly-unconnected vignettes. At the beginning there was something that seemed, at the time, to be a framing story, but they never came back to it so I'm not sure what that was about. The individual stories were mostly enjoyable; King Midas stood out in particular for me. A few of them were so-so (particularly the girl who refused all suitors, whose name we didn't get and I can't remember on my own). Almost everything was over-acted, and it would have been better if they'd toned that down, but it was still enjoyable.
They built a pool in the center of the stage and used it in most of the stories, usually appropriately but sometimes gratuitiously. It was used very well in the story of Ceyx and Alcyone (the former dying in a storm at sea). Two times during the show actors appeared to stay underwater for long periods of time and I wondered how they were doing that (hidden equipment? extraordinary lungs?); Dani noticed on the second one that while attention was focused elsewhere the actor sneaked up in a corner for air. Nicely done; I was looking for it the second time and missed that.
The story of King Midas was beautifully staged, with gold-colored lighting kicking in at just the right moments. (The lighting in general was excellent.) The stage was sparse (other than the pool), with not a lot of props, which worked well in this story -- Midas walked and the stones lit up below him, he reached up for an imaginary tree branch and the air lit up, and so on. They didn't light his daughter but by then they didn't have to -- she froze and you got it. (Granted, everyone knows the story.) The Midas story ended up bracketing everything else -- aside from that opening scene that didn't go anywhere, things began with Midas's plight and ended with the resolution, with all the other stories in between.
There were some humorous anachronisms. While most of the costuming was nondescript "Greek-oid", Midas wore a suit. (All actors were barefoot, though.) And later, the story of Phaeton and daddy Helios's sun-chariot was rendered as a therapy session, with a modernly-dressed female counselor spouting a mix of babble and Jung while Phaeton floated in the pool on a rubber raft. (My favorite line there: Phaeton says "so I said, gimme the car keys!". :-) ) Obviously in this version he doesn't die.
The story of Baucis and Philemon, the poor old couple who were the only ones to show hospitality to disguised Zeus (and another), was under-stated and gentle, as befits the ending. I think this was the last story before the return to Midas, and it was a good way to wrap things up.
A few times, between stories, people came out and "danced" with mops. Dani and I concluded that this was functional (but pretty), what with all the water being kicked up from the pool and whatever the actors were dripping onto the stage. (Which reminds me: either they had extremely quick-drying costumes or they were doing bunches of costume changes, which they might have had time to do because this was an ensemble cast with only a few people on stage at a time. The actors never looked soaked though they must have been at times.)
Two moments stood out for me in terms of the acting. First, in the opening Midas scene, the actor playing Midas had the part nailed, reminding me of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tangerinpenguin's Pantalone in particular. The greed and scheming while having trouble articulating concern for anything else was great. The other was Zeus in the Baucis/Philemon scene near the end; he managed to be the ordinary traveller and then larger than life when revealed, all without over-acting. It was beautiful to watch.
There was music, mostly between scenes for transition, and mostly delicate strings that tried to evoke ancient Greece. It never got in the way and mostly didn't jump out at me, but it added nice texture.
The show was shorter than most, about 1:20 (no intermission). The O'Reilly theatre is set up for three-quarter round and it's not that big, so if a show is staged to work in that space, there are no bad seats. We were in the center section and it looked like the staging was favoring us, so this might not be a show to get side seats for. On the other hand, there were no obstructions on the stage and the actors did move around, so maybe it wasn't that big a deal. They seemed to mostly be looking at us, not to the sides, but you could see them from everywhere.
The show runs through this Sunday.
I had wondered how they would stage this, and the answer turned out to be: mostly-unconnected vignettes. At the beginning there was something that seemed, at the time, to be a framing story, but they never came back to it so I'm not sure what that was about. The individual stories were mostly enjoyable; King Midas stood out in particular for me. A few of them were so-so (particularly the girl who refused all suitors, whose name we didn't get and I can't remember on my own). Almost everything was over-acted, and it would have been better if they'd toned that down, but it was still enjoyable.
They built a pool in the center of the stage and used it in most of the stories, usually appropriately but sometimes gratuitiously. It was used very well in the story of Ceyx and Alcyone (the former dying in a storm at sea). Two times during the show actors appeared to stay underwater for long periods of time and I wondered how they were doing that (hidden equipment? extraordinary lungs?); Dani noticed on the second one that while attention was focused elsewhere the actor sneaked up in a corner for air. Nicely done; I was looking for it the second time and missed that.
The story of King Midas was beautifully staged, with gold-colored lighting kicking in at just the right moments. (The lighting in general was excellent.) The stage was sparse (other than the pool), with not a lot of props, which worked well in this story -- Midas walked and the stones lit up below him, he reached up for an imaginary tree branch and the air lit up, and so on. They didn't light his daughter but by then they didn't have to -- she froze and you got it. (Granted, everyone knows the story.) The Midas story ended up bracketing everything else -- aside from that opening scene that didn't go anywhere, things began with Midas's plight and ended with the resolution, with all the other stories in between.
There were some humorous anachronisms. While most of the costuming was nondescript "Greek-oid", Midas wore a suit. (All actors were barefoot, though.) And later, the story of Phaeton and daddy Helios's sun-chariot was rendered as a therapy session, with a modernly-dressed female counselor spouting a mix of babble and Jung while Phaeton floated in the pool on a rubber raft. (My favorite line there: Phaeton says "so I said, gimme the car keys!". :-) ) Obviously in this version he doesn't die.
The story of Baucis and Philemon, the poor old couple who were the only ones to show hospitality to disguised Zeus (and another), was under-stated and gentle, as befits the ending. I think this was the last story before the return to Midas, and it was a good way to wrap things up.
A few times, between stories, people came out and "danced" with mops. Dani and I concluded that this was functional (but pretty), what with all the water being kicked up from the pool and whatever the actors were dripping onto the stage. (Which reminds me: either they had extremely quick-drying costumes or they were doing bunches of costume changes, which they might have had time to do because this was an ensemble cast with only a few people on stage at a time. The actors never looked soaked though they must have been at times.)
Two moments stood out for me in terms of the acting. First, in the opening Midas scene, the actor playing Midas had the part nailed, reminding me of
tangerinpenguin's Pantalone in particular. The greed and scheming while having trouble articulating concern for anything else was great. The other was Zeus in the Baucis/Philemon scene near the end; he managed to be the ordinary traveller and then larger than life when revealed, all without over-acting. It was beautiful to watch.There was music, mostly between scenes for transition, and mostly delicate strings that tried to evoke ancient Greece. It never got in the way and mostly didn't jump out at me, but it added nice texture.
The show was shorter than most, about 1:20 (no intermission). The O'Reilly theatre is set up for three-quarter round and it's not that big, so if a show is staged to work in that space, there are no bad seats. We were in the center section and it looked like the staging was favoring us, so this might not be a show to get side seats for. On the other hand, there were no obstructions on the stage and the actors did move around, so maybe it wasn't that big a deal. They seemed to mostly be looking at us, not to the sides, but you could see them from everywhere.
The show runs through this Sunday.
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