Book Of Days

Director – Marissa Duricko

Playwright – Lanford Wilson

Director’s Synopsis of Piece:

Book of Days is set in a small town dominated by a cheese plant, fundamentalist church, and a community theatre. When the owner of the cheese plant dies mysteriously in a hunting accident, Ruth, his bookkeeper, suspects murder. Cast as Joan of Arc in a local production of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, Ruth takes on the attributes of her fictional character and launches into a one-woman campaign to see justice done.

My Interpretation of Book Of Days:

Book of Days begins as a naturalist piece of drama accounting the lives of different people living in a the fictional town of Dublin, Missouri. This piece of comic writing evolves in to a murder mystery causing the audience to question all the characters they are presented with and enforces the question of who to believe. The piece itself calls for a sizable cast of at least twelve and throughout the piece you are introduced to everything from  a cheese plant and a fundamentalist church to community theater in this fictitious society that Lanford Wilson creates. The plot centers around a tornado that marks the death of one of the characters and so begins the mystery as to whether it was a death caused by a natural act or a murder. What I found really interesting about this play is the use of time and how it is played with. In several instances throughout the drama time is re-winded or fast forwarded to different dates to show a progression in the plot or the re telling of an important element of the story. Through this all of the characters are given a thorough back story and the audience feels they have a better insight as to who the culprit could be having knowledge of events and characters prior to the central event. This troublesome aspect of the production was achieved flawlessly by the UCC Dramat production of Book of Days. The production ensured that each of the twelve cast members had multiple costume changes, even if only for the most minute scenes, enforcing the idea of the passing of time. Because each of the characters represent a different person in society their costuming is key to the development of the characters as each character adopts their own style. The costuming shone through as a very strong production element. As well as the costumes, the lighting and set worked intrinsically together reflecting a simple natural  setting  that supported the ‘believability’ of the piece. Very simple yet effective designs. All of the productions elements combining together was a foresight of the strong group work created by the cast. A very hard piece to create as the ensemble carries it as a group. All of the characters were given the attention and support needed so that the production presented a united force to the audience showcasing a lovely example of the marriage between production and performance.

Foxfinder

Director – Maria Manning

Playwright – Dawn King

Director’s Synopsis of Piece:

When William Bloor, a ‘foxfinder’ arrives at the Coveys’ farm, he has only one aim – to use the education he’s been given to seek out and unearth the fox, an animal threatening their very civilisation. However, as investigations proceed, the revelations and events which follow change their lives forever.

My Interpretaion of Foxfinder:

Once again I had not heard of this piece previous to its announcement as part of the Dramat season 2013/2014. I had no expectations going in to this piece and did not know what to expect. The result was quite surprising. This piece verges on theatre of the absurd but is too heavily based in realism that it is quite hard to categorize the piece. The drama contains some very dark coronations and imagery which I was not suspecting prior too or even at the beginning of the performance. The writing steadily builds a trust between the drama and the audience allowing the writing to push more and more absurd messages in tot the laps of the audience members. It was a fine example of cleverly executed and subtle writing that demands quite a lot from the audience even if they are unaware of what id being asked of them. Below is a video where the artistic director of Artists Rep theatre explains the piece a bit more in-depth.

The piece itself, as mentioned in the video above, is a great platform for whatever topic is being discussed in society at presently. Because representation and symbolism are key to the figure of the fox in the piece, the audience can impose any meaning or message to the piece without the dialogue or delivery of the piece ever-changing. The writing is a chameleon of sorts that takes on the body of what is being discussed of the time. This is a sign of a piece of drama that will not age and constantly mantain relevance to the audience.

Goose Chase

Director – Margaret Perry

Playwright – Margaret Perry

Director’s Synopsis of Piece:

Goose Chase is a tale of boy-meets-girl told by a talking magpie. What if you discovered your life story had already been written for you? This is a story about stories, the stories we tell and the ones we live – the stories that are chosen for us and the stories we choose for ourselves. Typical and Lovely are a boy and a girl who meet when they’re 8 and a half years old. As they grow up, their lives intertwine – they don’t need anyone else, which is just as well, since there doesn’t seem to be anyone else around for them to talk to. They also begin to notice something strange – a talking magpie the size of a human man who seems to be following them. Things gradually become clear as their story unravels and Lovely has a choice to make.

My Interpretation of Goose Chase:

This for me was one of the most enjoyable productions I have seen in a long time. So many things about this production were spot on for me. Firstly the writing was incredibly innovative and witty that you could not help but notice the orignal writing style of Margaret Perry. The plot is a classic boy meets girl romance turned on its head. The piece invites the audience to watch, then opens up a conversation with the and finally joins the reality of the piece and the reality of the audience together completely shattering any previously mentioned ‘fourth wall’. I enjoy theatre of the absurd more especially when it defamiliarizes the familiar and that is exactly what this piece does. In terms of design aspect it is clear that the independent designers of lighting,sound,costume,make and set communicated a lot and discussed their designs in detail. The lighting achieved natural states when needed but equally was able to create a surrealist atmosphere when called for. The set was a very simple V intersection red-brick wall with a street lamp and two bushes, quite a simple design but done extremely well. The costumes were nothing short of professional standard. The ‘natural’ characters were dressed appropriate for the age they were supposed to be depicting and very casual however the true brilliance of the costume and make up design came to light when the audience was introduced to the narrator of the piece – a human sizes magpie. I was amazed at the detail of the costume and will not begin to describe it as I would not do it justice. Check out the

Look Back In Anger

Director – Rowan Finken

Playwright – John Osborne

Director’s Synopsis of Piece:

‘Angry young man’ Jimmy Porter lives with his wife Alison and friend Cliff in their one room apartment in an industrial town.  They spend their Sundays reading the papers and ironing. Jimmy torments Alison with her upper-class background and Cliff with his working class ignorance. The Porter’s relationship is crumbling while Cliff tries to keep everything on an even keel. Things get a whole lot worse with the arrival of Alison’s best friend, Helena Charles, who advises her to leave this volatile relationship. This results in a test of everyone’s loyalty.

My Interpretation of Look Back In Anger:

I will admit that I had never heard of this piece before and from speaking to a few of my peers, who would interested in theatre, neither had they. However upon researching the piece I found it to have quite a reputation. The drama was the beginning of a new type of theatre when it debuted in 1956, the kitchen-sink drama (the then new wave of realistic drama depicting the family lives  of working‐class characters, on stage and in broadcast plays). this style of theatre is not to everyone’s taste and honestly I did not know what my reaction would be. The UCC Dramat production staging was different to what I had seen before. There was no standing set, just furniture, depicting a one room apartment where the drama in its entirety takes place. As soon as I sat in the audience and observed the staging I knew the writing would have to be strong as the production could not rely on flashy production elements. Lighting,sound,costume and make-up  remained uniform and well matched with the neutral and muted tone of the set design. All production elements combined to support the writing of the drama as oppose to stand out. I was quite impressed with this as I tried to dissect the production elements afterwards and found that each of the individual designs almost blended together. This is a positive as it was easy to recognise that all of the individual designers had the same vision in mind. In terms of the writing, I found the piece to be a bit heavy and wordy in places but within the context of the character delivering these verbose lines along with the time ion which the piece was wrote it made perfect sense. The performances I found to be throughly enjoyable. This piece of theatre calls for a performance of the everyday and mundane and maintaining that consistent energy for two hours and fifteen minutes does take quite a lot of stamina. Overall I found the piece to be quite enjoyable and quite a peculiar choice for student theatre. I felt the piece caused a dialogue between the audience and the subject matter of the drama and by the end of the piece there doesn’t seem to be conflict just life represented on stage. After I saw the UCC Dramat production I researched it some more and came across this Guardian Article explaining the significance of the piece and it’s place in British theatre history. Below you will see a YouTube video showing one of the many monologues by the central character of the piece, Jimmy Porter.