I love to be entertained. I watch a lot of television, I
love movies, if you’ve been reading my blog you’ll know I like music, and
lately I’ve even started to enjoy reading a good book. But ever since my days
of drama class in high school, I’ve never really gotten back into enjoying
theatre. Unfortunately after seeing Dionysus
in Stony Mountain by Steven Ratzlaff, I’m not back on the wagon – but it’s
not his or the actors fault.
The play had two acts: the first being a meeting between a
prison psychiatrist named Heidi Prober (played by Sarah Constible) and her
patient, James Hiebert (played by Ross McMillan), and the second being a
conversation between Heidi and her uncle Eric who was also played by McMillan.
I will start out by saying that Constible and McMillian were
incredibly impressive in this play. Both acts were extremely dialogue heavy
containing extensive quotations of the famously complex Friedrich Nietzsche, as
well as the Bible, and other lines filled with technical jargon and complicated
pronunciations. I don’t understand how they were able to memorize as many lines
as they did, and this play gave me a newfound respect for the brain capacity of
actors in theatre. Not once did I notice either actor stumbling on any words or
forgetting their lines for even a split second. And to top it off, their facial
expressions were relevant and on point throughout, which means they knew
exactly what their counterpart was saying as well.
This brings me to why I didn’t particularly like the play
personally. It was not because it wasn’t well written, because it was. It
wasn’t because the actors weren’t solid, because they were. It was simply
because it was over my head. I tried very hard to keep up with the complexity
of what was being thrown at me, but the only lines I was able to grab hold of
were the biblical and Mennonite references from my personal experience.
Unfortunately I wasn’t caught up with the context at that point so even a lot
of that blew past me.
However, like I said, I do not fault anyone involved in the
play for my confusion. I really don’t think I’m the target audience, and so it
was difficult for me to relate. But, I think if I were to see it again I might
catch on to more of it and it might be more engaging for me.
That being said, I do not give up on theatre. This play has
actually given me a craving to see something else that would be more fitting to
my interests, because it has really given me so much respect for the people who
put on these shows.
So I guess although my experience was a confusing one, it
was still relatively positive, and I certainly tip my hat to the people who put
on Dionysus in Stony Mountain.
Who do you think is the target audience?
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