#The Studio Theatre

[robynsassenmyview]

Of anarchy, hadedas on Tik and a pile of books

"Of anarchy, hadedas on Tik and a pile of books", a review of Marianne Thamm's 'Round of Applause' at the Studio Theatre, Montecasino until 24 November 2024.

BIG stories and diverse perspectives: Marianne Thamm in Round of Applause’ at Montecasino until 24 November 2024. Photograph courtesy Montecasino Theatre. YOU MAY BE a little out of sorts if you buy your tickets for Marianne Thamm’s Round of Applause at Montecasino, anticipating a laugh-a-second one woman show. More of a lecture into the value of our unique Constitution and the craziness of…

[seren-dipitous-art]

Jason, edgelord since day one. Who also happens to read classic literature. Wearing leather even in medieval times because of course he is. Don’t ask me how he got those soles on his boots.

Still to come are yet more bats who can’t sit straight.

[zu-is-here]

kawaii <3

[wonkyyhonkytonkk]

please go to therapy jason please please please please pleeeeeease

[skittikyu]

non-sentient Carnival!Stiltikyu was basically functioning like a slightly more advanced discord soundboard

[teenytinysandwiches]

Jeremy Jordan in the studio for Newsies cast recording

[caretbread]

a lot of the vampire lestat for me was just going Okay now is nicki getting eaten?

[clarabowlover]

Stunning Tallulah Bankhead (Aged 17)

By Alfred Cheney Johnston (1919)

[canmom]

the Spirited Away theatrical adaptation

today I went with @birdfriender to see the stage production of Spirited Away, produced by Toho, currently on tour in London.

and like. holy shit??

you might say how the hell could you adapt a film like spirited away to stage. the answer is: incredibly inventive stagecraft, puppetry, costumes and especially choreography.

I was completely blown away by how this play flowed across the stage. set transitions were masked with lighting to direct attention, with the descending screen, with the rotating central platform that managed to function as nearly every part of the bathhouse. stairs, rotating bridges, creative use of size to indicate perspective (like the tiny train that circles the stage), and just the way the crew would move the props with a flourish -

but also the puppetry, like man! the way characters like Kamaji, Yubaba's giant head (used only at moments of intense emotion), and No Face would be operated by entire teams of puppeteers - it was extraordinary. the puppetry director was Toby Olié who's worked on a million different things including War Horse and you can really see them applying all these tricks accumulated over the years...

the show is remarkably faithful to the film; a few scenes are slightly abridged but every sequence I remembered was there and deliver with style. where it does need to pause and breathe, like in the famous train scene, it does. and like... it is fascinating to see an adaptation from animation to theatre. seeing how Mone Kamishiraishi (Chihiro) would stumble and bumb into walls just as she would under the pen of Shinya Ohira. or how a memorable sequence in the film could be represented symbolically: a collapsing pipe as a string of segments pulled on a string, a flower garden by dancers in flower outfits.

some of my fave sequences involved wooden panels carried by dancers, choreographed so the characters would weave between them, or they'd rotate to represent elevators on different floors. it was also fascinating to see how they'd symbolically represent things it would be impossible to stage, often representing fluids with fabric sheets. a transformation could be shown with actors swapping places with a flourish. at other times, it feels like stage magic tricks are in use, like a flash of light drawing your attention to a rope that was there all along. sometimes the puppeteers will be on stage, wearing simple beige outfits that mark them as not being 'present' as they manipulate the soot sprites and frogs and so on.

they also made effective, sparing use of a large projector screen, which descended at certain points, primarily for the driving scene at the beginning and the train scene. this actually didn't use scenes from the movie, but more of a soft, painterly style applied over... probably animated video? hard to say with the blurring, could be live footage. it reminded me of the use of similar screens in the later YoRHa plays, although it was a minor element here.

we weren't allowed to take photos (i took this one during the final bow anyway) and I would have been too busy watching to take them anyway, but this teaser shows briefly a number of the coolest setups. still, it's so much more when you see the whole thing flowing along without interruption.

and it was very interesting to me looking at this kind of show - big stage, directly homaging an animated film - from the eyes of someone who knows a lot more about film and animation than I do about theatre.

compared to film, you simply do not have closeups; the closest thing is when the puppeteers bring out the segments of Yubaba's giant floating head, but this is used sparingly. so everything is basically a long shot. however, because the acuity of a human eye is much greater than that of a camera, even from near the back of the theatre you can make out a lot of details that you wouldn't be able to make out with an equivalent camera shot. this allows compositions where there is loads going on at stage at once, with the eye being drawn to different areas by lighting and movement.

I do feel like there are definitely things to learn for animators from this kind of stage choreography. so many times I thought like, wow, that's so clever. like how chihiro riding haku was shown by splitting the dragon puppet into segments and putting her on the shoulders of one of the puppeteers.

and everything was done with such style too. if something shuffles off stage, you know it will be done with a wiggle and a flourish. small things but they add so much.

presumably because this seems like an incredibly involved show, there are multiple performers for each major character: four Chihiros, and three Hakus, Yubabas, Kamajis and so on. I'm not sure the exact lineup tonight beyond Chihiro. the exception is Kaonashi (No Face), who is played only by Hikaru Yamano, who gives an incredible performance, sidling and flexing around the stage in all sorts of strange ways that really get across the character's whole deal despite literally performing under a white mask and concealing robe. it's kinda amazing.

another fantastic casting is fundoshi dancer Yuya Igarashi as Kashira (the stack of three big heads that serve Yubaba, and speak only in wordless grunts). he basically has his real head as one of the three, and he has two more heads on his hands, and moves them around in incredibly energetic and funny ways. it's a brilliant way to interpret this, somehow feeling perfectly appropriate to have a buff guy in a red loincloth moving them around.

Yubaba's actress tonight would have been either Mari Natsuki or Hitomi Harukaze; either way she did an incredible job, it was really cool seeing a more human-proportioned version of the character and she brought a lot of energy and authority to the role.

the whole cast did a fucking amazing job honestly. I wish I knew more about theatre acting so I could comment more specifically on the tricks they were doing, but you definitely felt Chihiro's emotions

the production is in Japanese; English subtitles were shown on two screens on either side of the stage. the translation was on the 'honorifics included' end of that scale, but absolutely clear and idiomatic. the format worked - it was generally not hard to follow the action and glance at the subtitles, even though they were further away than they would be in film - and it definitely filled the theatre. I really hope this leads to more Japanese theatrical productions going on tour like this. wish i'd been able to see the Totoro one a few months ago.

definitely this kind of theatre must depend on a fairly obscene budget of the kind that only comes to biiiiig properties like, say, an adaptation of a beloved Studio Ghibli movie (one family turned up in cosplay) - there's a lot to be said for less extravagant staging. at the same time... this really was something.

i gotta go to the theatre more

[cannondiesel00]

This was my visit on 6/1/24, the studio C bot, was on random movements, they still had all the art, I don't know when they are going to remodel if they are, but it was a pretty cool visit due to this location being one of the only ones with the stain glass mural from the PTT days left, besides the corporate offices

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My first post on here, I've been into animatronics for awhile now, and been into chuck e cheese for the same amount of time, and finally got to visit one with a animatronic, due to the one in my area getting the 2.0 remodel years ago

[robynsassenmyview]

Victory in red heels

"Victory in red heels", a review of 'Actress', by Bruce Dennill and Talia Kodesh at Montecasino until 8 October.

THIS is for me. Talia Kodesh in ‘Actress’ at The Studio Theatre, Montecasino, until 8 October 2023. Photograph courtesy Facebook. HOW MANY BEAUTIFUL dreams have you left by the wayside as life has taken over and pushed you in directions that made you weep? How many times have you stood back and said: ‘I don’t want to be part of someone else’s project’? Bruce Dennill and Talia Kodesh have pooled…

[ifwebefriends]

I need someone to hold me like this

That would fix me I think

[arc-hus]

Hardelot Theatre, Pas-de-Calais, France - Studio Andrew Todd

[ceccyclone]

Your a winner! save for a bigger prize!

[lovely-hikari-cosplay]

Abbacchio doodles because I felt like drawing but also did NOT feel like drawing

[world-of-celebs]

Jordana Brewster attends the 2018 Outfest Los Angeles opening night gala screening of "Studio 54" at the Orpheum Theatre on July 12, 2018 in Los Angeles, California.