Friday, September 30, 2011

OSF Thursday: Desirae Fauske

As a whole, I believe Thursday was the favorite day for the peers in my group, as well as my own. We saw the matinee of Julius Caesar and evening performance of Pirates of Penzance (coincidentally, I had seen both of these shows twice beforehand, but these productions were by far the best I have seen). We took a design workshop in the morning, which was very helpful for me especially, as I plan on directing a show at Flathead next year. I believe having the design process laid out for me was extremely positive on my education for the upcoming year. As for the shows, both were completely exquisite. Julius Caesar had been, as according to the stage manager, "seeing the cast with their pants down." There was no set previously built, and all set was built by the actors during the duration of the show. Caesar was played by a woman, which was worlds better than I had expected. She had so much power behind her portrayal; I was surprised, but I felt she was more powerful than the men I have seen in the role. In addition, rather than turning Calpurnia into Caesar's husband, Mark Anthony was the one to plead Caesar to not go to the senate meeting. The two aspects added a line of subtext that Caesar was well aware that she was a woman in power, which is fairly rare. Not having a husband made me think of Caesar as a Virgin Queen of sorts. It added so much backstory behind the character.
As for Pirates, it was so much fun. As I said, I've seen the show twice before, but this was so diverse from the others that I almost forgot what show I had been watching. Our leading lady was an understudy, we had seen her in The Imaginary Invalid Tuesday night. Her performance of Mabel was so different from Angelique, and she acted and sang beautifully, I kept thinking I had no idea how she was not cast as Mabel in the first place. The costumes were so gorgeous, as well. The cast was a complete group of powerhouses, and I was blown away. Every time a song began I got a grin and just felt like I had been seeing it for the first time. Something that made the audience wake up every so often was the fact that a good portion of the songs had a tune of a contemporary song spliced into the score. We had Frederic wishing away his ugly old maid to the tune of 'I Wanna Know What Love Is'. Basically, both shows were complete opposites of the other, but both were flawless in their own sense.

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