KQED: The lights have just gone up for intermission at the opening night of San Francisco Opera’s long-awaited production of The Handmaid’s Tale. As people begin to rise and excitedly chatter about what we’ve just witnessed, the woman next to me turns to her companion and sighs.
2 comments:
I’ve never read the Handmaid’s Tale or watched the show produced by Hulu, but I have heard enough of the story to understand how dark it is. However, I didn’t know that there were stage adaptations of the story out there. The description given in this article depicts an incredible production with a powerful performance given by Irene Roberts, who played the character Offred. I can’t imagine the amount of dedication and determination she put into her performance, and the mental and physical strength it took to embody the character and all she went through. I like how elements of the set design are cleverly tied into the feeling of bleakness, as the article stated. I think without the visuals enhancing the atmosphere of the Handmaid’s Tale, the audience wouldn’t be as immersed in the production, especially if they were not familiar with the story.
Overall I was very intrigued by the idea of a live production of the Handmaid’s Tale. I’m wondering whether I can find recordings of the songs online, because I’d like to know what they sound like.
Upon reading this title I scoured all the websites I could think of hoping that there was recorded version out there. To my dismay of all the many productions over the years I couldn't find anything more than a short video of one piece, and the San Francisco Opera were livestreaming their production this weekend which I couldn't view. When researching I was surprised to see that the first production of 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Ruder was performed in 2000 by the Royal Danish Opera. With the great success of the TV show coupled with the threat to reproductive freedom, and the setting being what used the be America I would have thought it to come from a company like the Metropolitan Opera, the San Francisco Opera or LA Opera. I was already planning on searching for someway to watch this opera, but the descriptions of the scenes, the set design, and the ending moment really hammered that home even more. I agree the story is more powerful when there is no glimmer of hope because that is the truth of the situation and the direction life could really go. They seem to keep playing into the bleak and hard edged nature of the story the entire time and to cheapen it with one moment at the end feels like a disservice to the story, Margaret Atwood, and the real life people who's lives could look like this one day.
Post a Comment