The Limits of My Own Creativity

Well, interwebizens, it finally happened. I hit a wall.

You may have noticed I haven't posted many reviews these last few weeks, outside of performances here at Southwest, that is. Well, the reason is this:

I can't think of anything that screams out at me for a rating. I know, I know, it's pathetic. Here I am running a web-log dedicated to reviewing everything, and I can't think of anything to review. In my defense, I have been busy with school work and with writing some scripts here and there, but that isn't a very good excuse for letting down my six or seven faithful readers. At least my esteemed brother and colleague, the Jukebox Gyro has a legitimate, fantasticly awesome reason for his lack of content on this site. I've just been dropping the ball.

Which brings me to the reason for this post. I don't know what to write about-but you may have some things you want to read about. So I put it to you, interwebizens, what should I review next? We have a comment section. I suggest you use it.

This Post: 2 out of 5 skulls

Liquid Assets

As I said in my last post, I plan on reviewing every production put on here at SMSU this season. This past weekend, the drama club put on a production of Lee Blessing's A Body of Water. It is a relatively new play and was helmed by first-time director Nick Collins.

I must say that I enjoyed the play. The script was pretty tight, and Collins got some good performances out of his actors. This is not to say that the production was flawless. It wasn't. The night that I saw it, the curtains were not secured to the side walls of the Black Box, leading to a great number of distracting shadows. I found my eyes being drawn away from the action on stage to these shadows more often than not which is a shame, because it took me out of few genuinely touching moments. The only other complaint that I had on the technical side came at the beginnings of each of the play's five scenes. The sound design featured some very interesting guitar music, but instead of the music fading to lead the audience into the next scene, it cut out abruptly. Now, I know that that's a really minor gripe, but it was really jarring.

As far as what was going on on-stage, I don't have too many complaints. As I said earlier, Collins got some very good performances out of his cast. However, there were some problems. The biggest issue for me was that I never got the sense that the show's main characters, Moss and Avis played by Eric Niece and Nissa Nordland respectively, were old. I knew that they were supposed to be old, but I never got a sense of their ages from the performances of the actors. There was also a little hiccup in the first scene where they were trying to push the humor a little too hard, but they soon got into a groove and created some really fantastic moments. This all brings me to the third member of the cast, Amy Gielser. Without her, this play would have suffered greatly. No performance is ever perfect, and hers was no exception, but it felt to me that Giesler gave Nordland and Niece exactly what they needed to really make the show crackle. Individually, all three of these actors are good at what they do, but their chemistry together really elevated their performances a notch. That being said, they could have used some more movement. Collins' blocking provided a lot of good pictures, but sometimes it all felt a bit static.

All in all, I was very happy with this show. I know that the rehearsal period didn't exactly run smoothly, but the finished product was entertaining and, at times, very powerful. I think that everyone involved should be proud of what they were able to accomplish.

A Body of Water: 3.5 out of 5 skulls
This Post: 2.5 out of 5 skulls

Coming Home to Improv

While I like to use this web-log to spread around my opinions of various things from the world of pop-culture and so forth, I also wanted a place I could go to write up honest, unflinching appraisals of the work that I and my colleagues here at Southwest Minnesota State University put on stage. So far, I have reviewed our Orientation Sketch Show, and soon I will be posting reviews of both the Drama Club production of Lee Blessings' Body of Water, and David Lindsay-Abaire's Fuddy Meers. But before all that, we had our annual Homecoming improv show.

All in all, it went pretty well. We had a great audience that gave us some fantastic suggestions, and most of our improvised situations got laughs. Some of the sketches went long and felt forced, especially "Newscasters," "Sounds Like a Song Cue," and "Complaint Department." That being said, "Party Quirks," "Revolving Door," and "Gibberish Murder Mystery" went absolutely swimmingly. I realize that most people reading this who weren't at the show probably have no idea what those titles mean, but if you were there, you probably agree with me.

I gotta say, I'm looking forward to our next improv show. With more experience together, we'll probably be able to establish better chemistry and our greener troupe members will have a better idea about what games play to their strengths. This Homecoming show wasn't perfect, but I think it was a good start.

Take 2 Improv's Homecoming Show: 3 out of 5 skulls
This Post: 2.5 out of 5 skulls