Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "Whether you're renewing your acquaintance with some of Tarell Alvin McCraney's characters or meeting them for the first time, the experience is as challenging as it is rewarding.
'Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet,' which opened Friday night at City Theatre, is the third play in McCraney's 'The Brother/Sister Plays' trilogy.
2 comments:
Several of us went and saw this in previews a few weeks ago; while I did enjoy it, I think contrary to Ms. Carter's view, I would have benefitted from having seen the other productions in the trilogy - for me, the family's historical significance of the dreams was unclear until the end, and we didn't have quite enough time to know the characters and world well.
The show was very different from the sort of professional theatre that I've been used to seeing, i.e., it was a thrust configuration and relied more on implied ideas and moods from the characters and designers to provide setting and context than explicit design settings. The transitions between the dream and real worlds were executed very well - a sudden, bold lighting and sound cue was all that was needed to alter the world severely.
Although I understand Carter's opinion that the show is "challenging" in that you have to pay attention consistently to understand the story, I feel as though the portrayal of the show, in particular the speaking of stage directions, forces the audience to follow. When watching the first minute of this show and hearing the characters say their action while performing it, I was lost and found it to be a cop out on the director's part. However, past that minute I was drawn in by this staging and I loved how much more engaged I was with the story because of my heightened attention as I differentiated between dialogue and spoken stage directions. It was a technique that I had never seen performed and I am very glad to have had the opportunity to see a show that involved this method of performance.
I do agree with Daniel in that I would have felt more of an understanding if I had followed McCraney's series. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the show and experienced that, "I wanna see it again to catch what I missed the first time" experience.
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