While Charle’s L. Mee’s version of “Big Love” has been described as an “explosive comedy-drama,” SRJC’s interpretation is laughable, and not in a good way.
“Big Love” is Mee’s comical adaptation of the play “The Danaids” by Aeschylus that tells the story of 50 sisters forcibly betrothed to their 50 cousins.
Directed by Leslie McCauley, “Big Love” hides the genuine talent of SRJC actors with moments posed in all of the terribly awkward scenes of Mee’s creation. Moments of honest, heartfelt monologues about love and lust are bounced between abrasive feminist rants and violently choreographed dance-comedy. The self-bruising of the characters was distracting and painful to watch as they repeatedly threw themselves on the floor.
The play began with a vacant stage decorated with the gaudy, romanticized look of an Italian estate, complete with a bathtub and ivy-clad pillars. If the background hues of sunset reds and oranges were not already too much to handle, the wedding dress hanging from the rafters behind two gold frames was an over kill of the play’s concept.
Overall, it is hard to tell if the actors needed to tone down the theatrics or if the play could have used a more cohesive direction rather than choppy gimmicks to make the audience laugh. While the production did accomplish the latter, the humorous lines were few and far between.
One of the first characters the audience is introduced to is Lydia, the sweet-tempered sister played by Megan Bartlett. Within the first few minutes of the play the slight nudity warning on the playbill is obvious as Bartlett climbs into a tub, takes off her wedding dress and proceeds to sit sans clothing.
In comes the perfectly cast Giuliano, a member of the Italian family the sisters seek refuge with. Randy Hin’s portrayal of the mildly flamboyant Giuliano caught the audience’s full attention every time he took the stage. If Hin’s mesmerizing, out-of-tune serenade wasn’t enough then his delicate prance through the backdrop’s whimsical tapestry in a pink feather boa reeled the audience in.
While the play is about 50 couples, only three are actually introduced: sisters Olympia, Lydia and Thyona, and their cousin-husbands Nikos, Oed and Constantine.
Princess-like sister Olympia, played by Halie Islava, is a ditzy, easily persuaded character. Islava plays so well it’s difficult to distinguish where Islava stops and the character begins; not a negative observation in the least.
One character within the play who was almost entirely too hard to stomach was the unforgiving, “men are scum” sister Thyona, portrayed by Regielyn Padua. It was a simple matter of over-acting that made her scenes hard to bear. With a character so full of hatred and so overly aggressive Padua needed to remember to “reign it in’” and keep from overdoing it.
If there was one shining moment in the play besides the scenes with Randy Hin’s character, it was the soft, humbling conversation between Lydia and Nikos. As they discussed their potential relationship and budding interest in each other, both Bartlettt and Skylar Evans showed themselves to be actors who know a thing or two about subtlety.
As the play wore on, it was hard to tell which was worse: having to sit squirming in the chair or having to watch the jumbled mess on stage. At one point in the play, the sisters marry their cousins and a fight ensues between multiple actors as Lydia and Nikos simulate the most unsettling, uncomfortable act of sexual intercourse in a bathtub.
The plays effects were at times as poor as the acting. Although the aerial work was quite impressive with actors propelling down from an invisible helicopter, but many others like release of blood caps before a knife was even close to the body was simply laughable. The audience saw one husband’s bleeding neck before the wife’s knife was set to slice. But then again, isn’t that just like a man to finish before a woman is even done with the job?
SRJC has a history of well produced plays, but this time the theater department missed the bar. Big Love is worth seeing if you’re into unconventional theater and support the art and exploration of young actors. But if not, wait to see My Fair Lady in November.
Big Love is recommended for audiences ages 18 and above because it contains nudity and strong language. The play is at 8 p.m. on Oct. 13, 14, and 15; and at 2 p.m. on Oct. 15 and 16 in Burbank Auditorium. Tickets are available at the door or online at www.santarosa.edu/theatrearts.
Jody Benecke • Oct 15, 2011 at 1:55 pm
RE: Keisha Knight’s review of BIG LOVE utilizing the term “over acting”; speaking as an opera singer, I would like to point out to Ms. Knight that whether or not one is a fan of Wagnerian opera, to characterize what a dramatic soprano in the role of Brünnhilde does as “over singing” would be to reveal oneself as uneducated and/or unfamiliar with the genre. We professional singers have learned that what we might say about a colleague privately is never something one might say publicly on the record. We are always mindful that it is our colleague who is on that stage and taking that risk, fully prepared and well aware of what she is risking. Whether someone’s vocal tone, or artistic choices are to my own personal taste, the least I can do is respect her and her work. I, personally, given my own vocal skill set, would be a fool to try to sing Brünnhilde at all! I do like some sopranos in this role better than others, but I know for a fact that I could not approach the standard that is set by even the least of my favorites among these talented performers! I keep my personal opinions to myself and within my circle of trusted intimates and publicly honor the work of my colleagues, mindful that not one of them requires any advice from me!
Trevor Hoffmann • Oct 12, 2011 at 7:20 am
To whom it may concern:
I read The Oak Leaf article on the SRJC Theatre Arts department’s production of Big Love and was immediately disappointed- partly, I’ll admit, because I did not agree with the author’s taste or opinion. But also because right now, even though money is tight, our school has both a paper, and a theatre… for now. But theatre can only last if people see it, and a school paper can only last if it has something at the school worth writing about; The Oak Leaf, its editors and its writers, should use its position within the college to aid it, not tear down a neighboring section of it. Especially with so little reason.
I saw Big Love at Burbank on Sunday, enjoyed it thoroughly, and feel it was the beginning of a very strong season for SRJC Theatre Arts. And I say this as a relative outsider (I have acted locally for over a decade, but my current theatre class here is only the second class I have taken at SRJC). I was disappointed and confused to see Keshia Knight’s review in this week’s Oak Leaf. It seems to me that Ms Knight approached this theatrical experience expecting a “realistic” or [not a dirty word!] conventional performance- such as one might find in a movie, a musical, or a realist play by Anton Chekhov or Ibsen. In her review, she seems to ignore one of the facts she herself introduces: Big Love is a non-realist playwright’s adaptation of a Greek tragedy.
From her critique, it would appear Ms Knight was dissatisfied with several aspects of the play that struck me as deliberate and good directorial choices. I felt that the “gaudy, romanticized” set (as she describes it) was entirely appropriate for the often spectacular and symbolic nature of Greek tragedy; the spectral bridal gown, framed and hanging over the stage, seemed at once celebratory and forbidding. And I admit to having seen a different performance than the reviewer, but I was in no way disappointed by the performances or the affects! The acting, as Ms Knight complains, was not usually realistic- but as the dialogue was not written realistically, and as the plot is based on an ancient story about forced mass cousin-marriage and eventually mass murder, I am sure realistic acting would have been a terrible idea for most of the performers. Each of the three brides and three grooms represented not only the rest of the 50, but also the contrasting characters, strengths, and weaknesses within that 50, and within their whole gender. It seems to me the reviewer overlooked the “why” of many performances, chief among them Regielyn Padua’s portrayal of the temperamental and man-hating Thyona. When I saw Big Love, Padua played the part with all the fire and anger and violence the part called for, like Antigone with a lot less self-control; that Ms Knight found her “hard to stomach” only makes me confident that Padua’s performance was excellent at that show too.
This is not to say that performers who Ms. Knight praised did not deserve it- they did. But in her article, Ms Knight praises the following performances most highly: Randy Hin as Guilliano (the benevolent, mild mannered, gay son of the host of the manor), Halie Islava as Olympia (the bubbly, submissive girly-girl sister) and Megan Bartlett and Skylar Evans as the star-crossed lovers Lydia and Nikos. Whose acting is praised? Sympathetic characters’ only, because they behave more predictably, more comfortably, in a manner to which our sitcom-craving reviewer is more accustomed. The reviewer needs to learn the difference between the performer and the character, and realize that her emotional barometer is not a talent indicator.
Also unlike Ms. Knight, I found the physically and emotionally violent choreography exciting to watch. Conversely, the critic, flirting with libel, refers to this choreography as “self-bruising” and omits to mention that it was performed on a crash pad that covered the entire front of the stage. She also calls this choreography “distracting”, which just baffles me. Loud, yes! But distracting? No! Captivating! As first the three embattled sisters, then later their amorous cousin/groom/aggressors, began shouting and throwing themselves to the floor, I experienced a type of emotional and moral overload no single actor could have conveyed. The energetic rants that accompanied these His-and-Hers dances of angst were intentionally cacophonous and chaotic—trios of shouted soliloquies– and clearly we in the audience were not meant to catch each word, but merely get the feel. So what was the critic trying to focus on that the actors’ performance “distracted” her from? What but the dance and the dialogue could she have been paying attention to? Was she watching the set? Was she perhaps busy devising a way to tactlessly staple a premature ejaculation joke into her article? Her article on a play that centered closely around gender stereotypes and respect issues? That just isn’t mature writing.
And for a second, I have to get on my soapbox about honoring people and their effort- this paper and this reviewer failed to do so. The reviewer failed when she wrote about a play that featured excellent sound and lighting, an invisible helicopter, actors rappelling into the audience from the ceiling, and a mass-marriage-turned-slow-motion-stabbing, only to criticize that same play’s “special effects” because one actor’s blood pack burst a second early. The paper and its editors failed worse, by sending a writer into an area that was clearly not her strength, and then publishing her review anyway, thereby embarrassing her with her own work, and probably damaging Big Love’s 2nd weekend attendance by a tiny margin.
As you can tell by now, what really bothers me is that such an immature piece made it past the editors. I support freedom of speech and the press, but I do think responsible editing is a must for something as powerful as the printed word. So I leave you with these requests:
Please more carefully consider the effects (or even perceived effects) of articles you allow to be published in The Oak Leaf. Also, as editors, please be advised that theatre does not have “extras” or , strictly speaking, “actresses”- the term Ms Knight was looking for, in both cases, was “actors”. Should you decide to publish a harsh critique, be sure it is written by someone who has taste that can be trusted, experience in theatre, and respect for more than one kind of storyline and style- in short, someone who knows the difference between a play and a movie.
Thanks for your time,
Trevor L. Hoffmann
(P.S. this was written for me to vent, but if you guys wanted a free letter to the editor for next issue I’d willingly chop this down and make it a little more pleasant, or let you guys do it- friendly, intentional, non-malicious feud between differently opinioned (re)viewers could be fun for your paper, and I could see it helping SRJC’s Theatre Dept. as well to have arguments going on about it in the paper. Just… you need some better arguers…)