Yesterday night, after driving to Chicago with my sis and her boyfriend, K and I went to see Romance by David Mamet. It is a foul-mouthed, hilarious comedy that tries to restore peace in the middle east through spine-alignment in the large picture and peace in the bedroom through the airing of the grievances. It was standard Mamet dialogue; that is, sparse and great. The thing I liked best about this play is that between scenes they would dim the lights and you could see the actors move the props and set around while this cool synth, drum beat played. The actors would set themselves, the lights would go off, then when the lights came back on the actors would be in different positions.
Today, we went to see Macbeth at the Navy Pier. It was well-done with great scene transitions with some weird gothic/street tough leather style costumes; I think the acting in the Mamet was better, but that's Shakespeare theater for you. Immediately afterwards, the actors sat on the stage and answered questions about the play, and since it was kids day matinee the kiddies got to ask most of the questions. I was impressed that 1) many 8 year olds sat through Shakespeare play and 2) they had formed interesting questions about the play. The actors answered ably and didn't dumb down their responses. I felt like even I learned something. At the end of the play when Macbeth is killed (sorry to ruin it for you), they made the choice to have Macbeth grab Macduff's dagger help in the stabbing. It showed that Macbeth was responsible for his choices even though his path had been predicted by the witches. It was a great touch, though something I would have missed or dismissed if the actor hadn't pointed it out.
Big City theatre; it's hard to top the quality of the everyone involved the process.
