Of Bald Men and Bears

I went to a One-Woman show last night. It was Murmur Theater Company's production of Pamela Gien's The Syringa Tree. The woman who played 24 characters was Kelli Chaves (she was the one who played Jane Bennet in the Haymarket Theatre's Production of Pride and Prejudice, if you happened to attend that). It was directed by Jeff Little, a graduate of Hastings High School (he was the one who played Mr. Bingley--on a side note, the man who played Mr. Darcy showed up to watch the performance, and, oddly enough, the main character Ms. Chaves played was a girl called Elizabeth, or, more frequently, "Lizzy.")

I really enjoyed her performance--I thought that she did a good job moving back and forth between so many characters. Furthermore, the role must have been exhausting, because she went for 90 minutes without an intermission, mainly playing a hyperactive 6-year-old girl. The whole thing reminded me of the Benny section of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, both being heavy stream-of-consciousness told by a child. They did the show twice in Lincoln (read a story in the Lincoln Jounal Star here), but through special circumstances we were fortunate enough to get it to come all the way to Hastings.

Now, I know that that much of my story isn't interesting, but this One Woman show provides a nice transition into a man who is putting on a One Man version of the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy movies--it looks pretty funny (you can see a video clip here). He also has done a One Man version of the Star Wars Trilogy (see a video clip here). He does a pretty good Gollum for a Canadian.

Posted by Jacob on Thursday, December 30, 2004 at 7:05 PM | Permalink