Has "actor stays onstage in character during intermission" become more of a thing recently, or is this just a coincidence? — Page 2

trentsketch said: "There are some productions where it works, and some where it doesn't, just like any other theatrical conceit.

The most effective use I've seen wasn't intermission, but it was preshow. This was Hedda Gabler at the Public with Elizabeth Marvel. If you didn't see this production, it was done with a stage up front and a walkway surrounding the audience. Cast members could enter and exit from the back of the house. The audience was basically trapped inside with Hedda. Marvel sat onstage, slumped over a piano, occasionally playing some notes as timed ticked by in another day of her life. The house went down but the theatre never fully went dark as the walkway was always lit.

There were some big swings in that production that didn't land for me, but I found the actor onstage before the show conceit to work here."



^That production was at NYTW, I believe - and for those wondering, it was an Ivo Van Hove joint. He did it again with Ruth Wilson in London, which I saw. I believe it was a similar set, and they did the same thing with her at the piano, though there was no walkway (it was at the Lyttelton, which is quite a bit larger than NYTW). Sounds like a cool additional element to the conceit, though!

When I saw it happen at Parade at Encores I definitely felt it was Arden copying Oresteia from earlier that year. In terms of cast being on stage when the house opens I felt that Indecent was the most powerful example I can think of. And at A Dolls House I'm pretty sure she came on a few minutes after house opens and eventually the rest of the cast came on before the show started.

if i'm not mistaken, this was also the case in the 1997/8 revival of The Diary of Anne Frank, which has extra poignancy when you consider the precarious situation of staying put the actual people they were playing were in. i'd imagine one by one, or some configuration, they left the stage for whatever costume change, etc. was necessary, as the characters did throughout the play anyway. i should say, i did not see this revival, but have read a lot about it. if anyone did and can verify, that would be great!