Learning Journal March 21

Busy week- busy, busy week.

We went to St. John on Wednesday to see the dress rehearsal of Frost/Nixon- there were a lot of high school theater arts students at the show- and the actors had a Q&A session when the play was over, so that was nice. The play has been getting a bad wrap in the forums- but it really wasnt that bad. But there were a lot of things that went wrong. During the asides- many of the actors stoof out of the spotlights- and during the interviews- it became difficult to know what lines were meant for everyone to hear- and what lines were meant for the audience only. The giant TV was really, really bright- and it was a distraction at times. A lot of lines were lost because they weren't loud enough.

Nixon was brilliant- he was the right level of funny and factual. Frost on the other hand came off as abrasive and rude at times- it made it difficult to find him charismatic- which lead to me feeling sympathetic for Nixon... I do not think that I should have.

My biggest complaint would be the timing and delivery of the jokes. Actors need to be aware of what actually makes a joke funny- and if you do not get the timing correct on the back and forth exchange, the comedy is lost. It also could have been the audience that was too young for many of the jokes. In particular- I really enjoyed the 'Ben Hur' joke- but it was completely lost on the age group. I laughed out loud... then realized that no one else was laughing... I soon stopped. Haha- It made me feel weird. Anyways- I mostly focused on the negative- but it was still a good play.