Birthday Treat
Sep. 23rd, 2006 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamsharkThis is kind of an out of date post, but I'm trying to write about all the entertaining things I've done this summer so I'll have some record of what a wild and fun-filled life I lead. I wanted to celebrate my birthday with a play at the New Guthrie. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eileenlufkin and mgs joined Richard and me for a performance of The Real Thing.
The new Guthrie has 3 stages: the traditional (for the Guthrie) thrust stage, another large theater with a proscenium stage, and a small experimental theater. Thing was on the proscenium stage. Picking seats online was a somewhat surprising experience. There are 3 price tiers, with Tier 1 and Tier 2 just $5 apart and then a big drop of $15 to the lowest tier. The cheap seats are mostly on the sides, as you'd expect. But strangely enough, the front row is Tier 3, and rows 2-5 are Tier 2. I could only imagine that the stage must be so high that the first few rows would be looking up the actor's nostrils, but that wasn't the case: the first 5 rows actually have a great view. I picked Row 5, figuring there must be some horrible surprise associated with the first row, but it looked like it would be fine up there. The side banks of seats also have a pretty good sightline. So if you're going to that theatre and need to save money, don't be afraid of the cheap seats. I was initially a little disappointed that my first Guthrie play was not in the thrust theater, but this was a beautiful theater with a fabulous state of the art back-projection screen and many layers of stage settings gliding smoothly up and down as the scenes changed.
The New Guthrie is clearly going to be a great success. Even on a Wednesday night towards the end of the play's run, the theater was at least 2/3 full. Despite the small fortune the Guthrie spent on signage, it's still a bit hard to find your way around. It's not clear that you are supposed to pick up your tickets in the first floor lobby before riding the Escalator to Heaven to the 4th floor, which is where the theaters are. So many people are making that mistake that they don't even make you go back down to the bottom to pick up your tickets - if you're already at the theater door and you're in the computer they give you a handwritten note that gets you into the theater. There are little restaurants and bars all over the place, but no indication of which ones, if any, are open after the performance (oddly enough, most of them close up halfway through.) I was sure there was one bar that was open until 2am, but we couldn't seem to find it. I just saw a restaurant review in the Strib that reinforced my belief that one of the bars is open until 2, but I bet nobody's going to it. In order to figure out that it's open you have to walk all the way to the end of the Bridge to Nowhere, and you have to be on the right level of The Bridge. I'll bet they'd get more business if they put a sign in the 4th Floor lobby proclaiming "BAR THAT IS OPEN 'TILL 2am!! THIS WAY!"
As for the play.... it wasn't quite to my taste. I just didn't like any of the characters, and it's the kind of play that is all about characters and relationships. I think part of the problem, at least for me, was the lead actress, whose performance was weakcompared to the old pros that made up the rest of the cast.mgs and eileenlufkin, who are major Tom Stoppard fans, helped me appreciate the play a bit more and realize that it's the kind of play that is very sensitive to the interpretation of the actors. I think the actress that played Annie worked better for them than she did for me.
Anyway, it was a good way to celebrate a birthday, and I hope to be back to the Guthrie again.
eileenlufkin and mgs joined Richard and me for a performance of The Real Thing. The new Guthrie has 3 stages: the traditional (for the Guthrie) thrust stage, another large theater with a proscenium stage, and a small experimental theater. Thing was on the proscenium stage. Picking seats online was a somewhat surprising experience. There are 3 price tiers, with Tier 1 and Tier 2 just $5 apart and then a big drop of $15 to the lowest tier. The cheap seats are mostly on the sides, as you'd expect. But strangely enough, the front row is Tier 3, and rows 2-5 are Tier 2. I could only imagine that the stage must be so high that the first few rows would be looking up the actor's nostrils, but that wasn't the case: the first 5 rows actually have a great view. I picked Row 5, figuring there must be some horrible surprise associated with the first row, but it looked like it would be fine up there. The side banks of seats also have a pretty good sightline. So if you're going to that theatre and need to save money, don't be afraid of the cheap seats. I was initially a little disappointed that my first Guthrie play was not in the thrust theater, but this was a beautiful theater with a fabulous state of the art back-projection screen and many layers of stage settings gliding smoothly up and down as the scenes changed.
The New Guthrie is clearly going to be a great success. Even on a Wednesday night towards the end of the play's run, the theater was at least 2/3 full. Despite the small fortune the Guthrie spent on signage, it's still a bit hard to find your way around. It's not clear that you are supposed to pick up your tickets in the first floor lobby before riding the Escalator to Heaven to the 4th floor, which is where the theaters are. So many people are making that mistake that they don't even make you go back down to the bottom to pick up your tickets - if you're already at the theater door and you're in the computer they give you a handwritten note that gets you into the theater. There are little restaurants and bars all over the place, but no indication of which ones, if any, are open after the performance (oddly enough, most of them close up halfway through.) I was sure there was one bar that was open until 2am, but we couldn't seem to find it. I just saw a restaurant review in the Strib that reinforced my belief that one of the bars is open until 2, but I bet nobody's going to it. In order to figure out that it's open you have to walk all the way to the end of the Bridge to Nowhere, and you have to be on the right level of The Bridge. I'll bet they'd get more business if they put a sign in the 4th Floor lobby proclaiming "BAR THAT IS OPEN 'TILL 2am!! THIS WAY!"
As for the play.... it wasn't quite to my taste. I just didn't like any of the characters, and it's the kind of play that is all about characters and relationships. I think part of the problem, at least for me, was the lead actress, whose performance was weakcompared to the old pros that made up the rest of the cast.
mgs and eileenlufkin, who are major Tom Stoppard fans, helped me appreciate the play a bit more and realize that it's the kind of play that is very sensitive to the interpretation of the actors. I think the actress that played Annie worked better for them than she did for me. Anyway, it was a good way to celebrate a birthday, and I hope to be back to the Guthrie again.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 08:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-24 04:35 pm (UTC)P.