Danton's Life

The production of Danton's death was for me rather interesting. The best way to respond to a production however is not to list it but to review it, so here is my review from a stage management perspective and a more personal view.
Let’s start with the set, as far as I could tell it was painted in the true to form theatre style of staining, where you allow the colour to flow and interact with the lighting to create states that agree with the director’s view. The colours looked a sort of diseased wooden so greens blues and browns. I remember thinking that that was my paint standard as I had painted similar pieces; in fact the bench was identical to one I made last year. The back wall has half a hexagon with three sides at approximately 35 degree angles to each other and painted similarly. They had doors set into them for access and removable back walls to assist with set changes. They used a rather neat trick with the set changes in fact, by blinding us with fire.
Burning torches were carried out during the more expansive scene changes to destroy the night vision of those who would spy on backstage via an open door. The second tier of the set had massive shuttered windows that had lanterns behind to mimic natural light. These worked very well, and could be shut to create further states.
The acting was at a good standard I think, the problem as I see it is the ages of the actors, in my brief knowledge of the French revolution, Danton should be an older slightly jaded character who wants his death to mean something for the cause for which he devoted his life. He doesn’t want to die in the debauchery that awaits all revolutionaries. I do however very much like the casting of Maximilien Robespierre as he is the perfect dictator, shot powder white and he wears the character like an old coat, it fits perfectly and without chafing.
As far as cueing it seems a simple piece that could be done by a semi professional, the relatively small scene changes and props require knowledge of the show but not a deep involvement in that scene at least. The rehearsals must have been enjoyable and I hope that they were at least for the actors’ scene. The other actors were not perhaps to the same calibre but I shan't judge, I’ve seen worse.
A lot worse in fact.
What impressed me more was the reaction of my year group to the production; as far as I could tell the majority were bored ridged up until the final moments. At which point there was the noise of an entire audience sitting forward to see the trick and a couple of hundred trying to solve it. I was not part of that number, I have the greatest respect for magic and science and I enjoy it too much to ruin it with perception and speculation. This is the trick that I alleged too in my earlier entry.
After the production we sort of dispersed, I gathered some opinions from different members of the group, some were sure of themselves and could confidently say that they liked of disliked it and others went along with them, some liked it because they were supposed to and others had no opinion at all, and were, like myself, asking the questions. However the conclusion was that the lighting and sound guys didn’t like it, the technical production lot did and everyone else was open minded but noted that if they knew more about the revolution they would have liked it more. I disagree with that this piece was supposed to educate you can’t say to the teacher that would have paid attention if it were something you already knew.

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