Tuesday, November 08, 2011
The Great Fire--a play
The Great Chicago Fire in a play---an extremely intense afternoon of drama, at the Lookingglass Theater in Chicago, IL.
The Great Fire lasted 36 hours, burned 2200 acres, displaced 100,000 families, and destroyed esentially everything south of Fullerton street. The conditions could be described as a perfect storm--drought-parched, solid wood, houses, sidewalks, streets, and a steady, high wind. The spark was in the O'Leary barn--supposedly due to a cow kicking over a lantern. The play that it inspired is a complex creation, both in the script and in the execution.
It's structure is the interwoven stories of six survivors. But the central figure is the personification of the fire, who constantly threads through the scenes, battles the people and destroys property. Apparently there were places that were supposed to be humorous during the play--I never saw them. From the start with the ominous sub-sonics on the sound system as The Fire staged the O'Leary incident with toy animals and people and a play barn, it was greater and lesser tension throughout, until the final scene when the rain came.
Technically this show was a tour-du-force. The sound design, the lighting design, and especially the set design, with falling walls, all added to the tension and foreboding. The representations of buildings with wood and paper models, and their symbolic destruction as they were taken down or cut down and let fall, gave a definite feeling of the losses that were incurred. The management of the performance was perfect by my observation. I detected no mis-cues or mis-operation of props.
The actors were all superb, some of them playing as many as three or four roles with varying characters and accents. But to me, Lindsay Noel Whiting as the Fire was far and away the star. She was dressed much like a young, 1870's girl, and wore her hair as two large braids adding to the effect. One might have thought she were only 12 or 13 at first glance, until one observed her bearing. She is a phenomenal acrobat, scaling the supports at unbelievable speed and hanging in poses most people could not accomplish. But what stands out is her ability to be malevolent. There was no doubt that as The Fire, she was evil. It is this malevolence, despite the surface childlike look, that kept the mood constantly tense.
This play is drama at its best, providing a complex view of life, and leaving one with much to think about. It cannot be called entertaining, it took effort to watch and keep track. However, it is definitely worth the time.
The Great Fire lasted 36 hours, burned 2200 acres, displaced 100,000 families, and destroyed esentially everything south of Fullerton street. The conditions could be described as a perfect storm--drought-parched, solid wood, houses, sidewalks, streets, and a steady, high wind. The spark was in the O'Leary barn--supposedly due to a cow kicking over a lantern. The play that it inspired is a complex creation, both in the script and in the execution.
It's structure is the interwoven stories of six survivors. But the central figure is the personification of the fire, who constantly threads through the scenes, battles the people and destroys property. Apparently there were places that were supposed to be humorous during the play--I never saw them. From the start with the ominous sub-sonics on the sound system as The Fire staged the O'Leary incident with toy animals and people and a play barn, it was greater and lesser tension throughout, until the final scene when the rain came.
Technically this show was a tour-du-force. The sound design, the lighting design, and especially the set design, with falling walls, all added to the tension and foreboding. The representations of buildings with wood and paper models, and their symbolic destruction as they were taken down or cut down and let fall, gave a definite feeling of the losses that were incurred. The management of the performance was perfect by my observation. I detected no mis-cues or mis-operation of props.
The actors were all superb, some of them playing as many as three or four roles with varying characters and accents. But to me, Lindsay Noel Whiting as the Fire was far and away the star. She was dressed much like a young, 1870's girl, and wore her hair as two large braids adding to the effect. One might have thought she were only 12 or 13 at first glance, until one observed her bearing. She is a phenomenal acrobat, scaling the supports at unbelievable speed and hanging in poses most people could not accomplish. But what stands out is her ability to be malevolent. There was no doubt that as The Fire, she was evil. It is this malevolence, despite the surface childlike look, that kept the mood constantly tense.
This play is drama at its best, providing a complex view of life, and leaving one with much to think about. It cannot be called entertaining, it took effort to watch and keep track. However, it is definitely worth the time.
// posted by Bill @ 5:21 PM 
