Marry Poppins Going Non-Equity?- Page 2

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 5/25/11 at 2:50am

^ I totally agree. That was the first production I saw of the show, and I LOVED it. The set was still amazing even though the castle unit was gone. In a way it actually made the castle seem more spacious because the action was not restricted to the unit, and the moving pillars, draps, and pieces did a great job of showing the different locations within the castle. I was much more impressed with that tour than I was with the most current tour. The current tour's design was just ugly. The swirling vine design on nearly every inch of the stage space just chokes the show IMO.

[julesboogie]

Posted: 5/25/11 at 12:42pm

How did you feel about the gargoyles moving the set pieces in place of automation? Either of you.

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 5/25/11 at 2:34pm

jules, since I haven't seen the networks production (yet), I shouldn't comment too extensively on the gargoyles motoring the castle units. I am only family with this tour through production / press photos and video clips and only want to comment on those resources. I did appreciate the moving buildings within the village and i don't inherently have a prejudice against the gargoyles since that is simply an extension of a concept from Roth's original staging, where a gargoyle man-handles Belle.

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 5/25/11 at 2:42pm

The gargoyles were a little strange, but it was not the biggest problem in this production. The village set drove me crazy because the houses looked like out houses and shacks. The back drop for the village and Belle's house was this picture for a deer leaping in the grass that looked like it was drawn by a five year old. I feel like 70% of the problems I had with the set could have been fixed by removing some of the vines that choked nearly every inch of the stage. The proscenium for the show was huge (and covered in vines), and made the stage extremely small.

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 5/25/11 at 2:52pm

bwayphreak,
the stage / proscenium opening isn't small in and of itself.. it's that often times the tour venues have absolutely giant proscenium openings and most shows that go in seem dwarfed, but this production has chosen to have the vines extend off as far as the eye can see in every direction, rather than just framing the stage, so you notice how much smaller the production is than the host venue stage.

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 5/25/11 at 4:08pm

In this case the production chose to have a smaller stage because of the design. The proscenium took up a lot of space because of the way it was shaped, not the venue. This was at the same venue I always see things, and theatre itself has panels on either side of the stage that can be adjusted to fit both big and small shows. I know some shows have adjustable procseniums to fit different venues, but this show had a procsenium that was designed to be bigger, and I personally thought it made the performing space small an constricted. It was a design choice here, it didn't have to do with the venue - at least I don't think so

[julesboogie]

Posted: 5/25/11 at 8:42pm

Gargoyles were not my favorite. I however did like the change from a winter motif to more spring colors both in the costumes and backdrops. Dont remember the 4 year old rendition of a deer.

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 5/25/11 at 9:05pm

This shows how large the proscenium was. The space in the center not covered in vines is the performance space.