Pittsburgh in the Round: This past weekend I attended Comtra Theatre’s opening night performance of Dogfight. The show first debuted Off-Broadway in 2012 as a musical adaptation of the 1991 film of the same name. Comtra’s production is directed by Johnny Gallagher who presents a heartfelt story that is performed by a cast who exude love for the show through their performances.
2 comments:
I had the opportunity to do the scenic design for a production of Dogfight about two years ago and in many ways agree with what Jade shares in this review. The show deals with a lot of issues that need to be addressed in today's world, and need to be handled properly by the production staff (further emphasizing the importance of intimacy directors in our industry). While the design I did was in proscenium, I think there are a lot of opportunistic to work in the round like this production did, and highlights the intimacy of this production. Sometimes when we see something on stage from a distance it can seem removed from reality, but the issues in this musical such as sexual assault, body shaming, toxic masculinity, and more are far from a thing-of-the-past, so the staging can really reach people in a way other stagings may not be able to. With all that said, it is again vitally important that things are handled appropriately not only throughout the production process, but also during the run with the audiences. This can come in the form of providing resources and phone numbers in the show's program, posting appropriate trigger warnings, or having designated counselors in the house for patrons to use if they need it. I'm glad the author had a great experience at this production, and I hope others did as well.
I am not really sure why, but I really like reading reviews of shows I have never seen. This review, I think is really well written. I was really able to picture this production of the show just by reading the review and it really made me what to see the show, whereas most reviews I read are kind of confusing and I couldn’t care less about seeing the show being reviewed when I am done reading. Like I said I have never seen this show, but I have listed to the soundtrack a lot so I am familiar with the show. I would have always imagined this show with a big set on a big stage. It doesn’t really seem to me the kind of show that lend itself so well to being in the round because of the big numbers. But the way this theatre seemed to do it makes a lot of sense to me after reading this review. I especially like the idea they have to project images from the time period. I like that the reviewer mentioned the chorography because when they said it was in a small space that was my first question. So it sounds like the choreographer did a great job making that work well.
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