Performance Report 2

Introduction:
This second performance report is on the musical Side Show performed on April 8 at 8pm in the University Theatre. Book and lyrics by Bill Russell and Music by Henry Krieger.
The story is based loosely on the true lives of conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton born in England in 1908. They were exploited as financial potential, as they could both sing, until they sued for their independence. They continued performing but were abandoned and died of Hong Kong flu in 1969. This story attempts to address the idea topic of self-acceptance identity. What is normal? What is it to be normal? Why does it even matter?

Music:
The music of the show is obviously the main element to the acting and interaction of the performers. Since it is a musical, sentences are often sung and not spoken. The melodies are not as important during these times and the melodic phrase is usually pretty monotoned. There is a song for every situation/scene in the musical. When singing the words, it's pretty much one word per note. All vocals are sung in the traditional, western method or closely resembling that method. It is easy to tell who has more vocal ability from the quality of the voice as each performer sings. The human voice is the most important instrument during the show but live music is present in the form of a live pit which is quite small, consisting only of about 17 people. However, the volume was actually not bad.

Performers:
Performers interact with each other mainly within the context of the musical's story. They talk to/about each other in their characters. They also communicated through eye contact and cues when there is a scene change. Through the music and dance, performers are also able to tell what another performer is about to do. Since everything is in the context of the story, all performers are dressed as their character at all times. The actresses who play the twins are always together even when walking on and off stage. Each performer, with an important role or not, has a different costume, unless the scene calls for them to dress the same. This way you are able to differentiate each of the people.

Performers try to interact with the audience as well by speaking to them during their monologues and actually singing to the audience sometimes. During the start of the musical, the freak show is advertised to the audience as an introduction to the cast.

Audience:
This was the audience for the opening night. Most of the people there know someone on the cast or in the live pit or both, parents, grandparents, friends, family, etc. Some are there for reports. The room was fairly full. In terms of the "outsider", there are those who already know or have performed the songs in the musical so those are "outside" would be those completely new to this musical. Although that doesn't hinder you from enjoying the musical. In fact, it might have been better because these people would not be judging the performance based on a performance they previously attended.

Time and Space:
The size of the crowd is mostly due to the fact that not only is it opening night but it is also free night. Many people who are not UTD students came to see it. They were not the most responsive crowd though. The musical's entrance is with the performers on the side stairs next to the audience and the cannibal king runs around the audience at one point, so they do try to include the audience into the performance. The room was also quite small so the audience was very close to the stage, and very close to the performers making it feel like a very "close" performance, unlike huge stages where the audience is at least 15ft from the edge of the stage.

Conclusion:
In general, it was a good performance. The live pit was regrettably the most unsatisfying thing of the performance because it kept making mistakes which took away from the performance in general. The songs were still pretty interesting despite the fact that the musical is story oriented and less caring about the melodic or actual musical aspects of the performance. Although it is true most to the time, the audience was not always just the audience and the performers tried their best to pull the audience into the world of the story.

Sources:
*NOTE: italics used in place of underlining because blogspot doesn't have the underline option

Side Show. By Bill Russell/Henry Krieger. Dir.Robert Longbottom. Perf. UTD drama students. Cond. Robert Longbottom. University Theatre, Richardson, 8 April 2010. (Side Show).

Longbottom, Robert. Director's Notes. Side Show. 8 April 2010. Richardson: University Theatre. (Longbottom).