JAYRED LEMPRIERE

MY REVIEW

On Wednesday the 27^th of February, we took a trip to London to The Old Vic to watch a play called ‘Kiss me Kate’ for part of our unit.

‘Kiss me Kate’ was about love affairs in a play within a play. The actress Hannah Waddingham who played the character of Kate and the actress in the Shakespeare scenes had the very difficult task of switching amongst her to contrasting roles. This particular classic possessed repetitive change in voice dynamics, accent and body gesture.  For the main roles the difficult task of showing consistent and distinct character change made the roles in the play very hard to fill, as the actor had to have extreme skill to be able to embody both of their characters dominant characteristics throughout the performance. These actors had to show clear and distinct character change or the play would be made hard or almost impossible to understand.

The opening of ‘Kiss me Kate’ was very clever and well thought out because the chorus juveniles of the play came onto stage naturally with purpose. This gave the opening a very realistic approach. One by one the actors flooded the stage setting up the scenery for the opening of the show. This was intended to capture the audience’s attention to make a silent announcement that the show was about to begin. This gave ‘Kiss me Kate’ an instant individuality. The actors and actresses were sectioned into dancers, actors, singers, and teachers. They all had a set rota on stage, they individually or in a group moved round the stage changing activity. This was created to captivate the feeling of the hectic and busy day of rehearsal.

I personally loved how the Director Trevor Nunn chose to change scenery. The actors in costume danced towards the centre of the stage were there was a box containing the three dimensional scenery. The actors attached the scenery to part of the stage tech and the scenery would unfold out of the box displaying a 3D scene. This particular object and method of changing scene happened on several occasions. Every time this method was used the scenery or object pulled out of the box was different. This gave the play a very surreal and effective approach.

I personally feel that I would have enjoyed ‘Kiss me Kate’ considerably more if I understood the dialog in the Shakespeare scenes. I also think that the target audience for this performance was the middle age public because I didn’t understand the jokes set within the play. I did enjoy the plays concept and jaw dropping elements of singing and dancing, however I believe I would have enjoyed the play at its full potential if I had understood the Shakespeare dialog and mature adult jokes. Overall I enjoyed my visit to ‘The old Vic’ to see ‘Kiss me Kate’.