Birdwood-fringe 2013 Essay

Birdwood-fringe 2013 consisted of many shows but the one that really caught my eye was â€Å"The Terrible Infants†. The play was cast with previous and current students who attend Birdwood High. Many, if not all have had drama production background, working in school productions and the local theatre group TOTTS (Top of the Torrens) productions. Knowing these students, I expected to be wowed from the start and my expectations were not let down. Right from the start, every character was switched on, working as one, moving as one. They knew where they were meant to be, what they were meant to be doing at every second. Every lights down they knew what props they needed to collect and did it with no noise. Even when one of the props weren’t collected or in their right place each character chipped in without it being noticed by the audience to show/point/grab where the prop was. When the butcher‘s (Courtney Bryant-Leray) apron didn’t go on as planned she still placed it onto her, even though it was on sideways. Ignoring she had it on wrong, she still went on with her lines and actions as though it was meant to be like that only fixing it when the spotlight was on a fellow cast member. The whole play in general was exciting. Using lighting changes e.g. green for the forest (Betrice scene) was very smart. Just changing the lights from amber to green instead of ending the scene, turning the lights off, setting up the scene so it looks like an actual forest would have been time wasting and then at the actual end of the scene having to turn the lights off, put the forest set away then getting the set back to normal would have been an even more waste of time, but instead they changed the set to a tree silhouette whilst the scene was in progress. The atmosphere of the entire play was warming, and enjoyable, making the audience feel welcome, without even saying a word to them. We were always laughing, feeling each and every emotion the cast was portraying, when they had a funny moment, we laughed, we were probably laughing most of the time, except when it came to â€Å"Thingummy Boy† scene. The scene Thingummy Boy was serious, the most intense scene in the whole play. During the play each character was facing the audience, making their moves over exaggerated, they emphasised words that were needed, but in the scene of â€Å"Thingummy Boy† they faced away from the audience, not moving or making a sound. It made the scene, sad, and if it had more of a meaning then the other scenes. When they did turn to speak they had no exaggeration, no emphasis in their words, their faces were blank, no smiles yet no frowns. The scene was the one that impacted the audience the most. Even though the play wasn’t an original that the group wrote themselves, they made it their own, adding lines and taking actions out. They put their own twist in every scene, in every character. It was a unique play, that was shown beautifully.