Thursday, 4/25/2019
OMG, I forgot to click Publish on Wednesday’s blog, and didn’t write this on the day. Went to the Shustek center for cataloging.
On return home had a quick meal and went out again to the Bus Barn (aka Los Altos Stage Company but everyone likes the old name better) to see their production of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. At lunch, Gretta said she saw this play produced a few years ago in Seattle and it was a wonderful experience.
This one, not so much. Half an hour in I was thinking, OK, they’re trying hard but I will leave at intermission. One hour in I was thinking, Oh no! They aren’t going to have an intermission! Then they did take a break, and I went home. The problems were multiple. The stage dressing had to serve as the backdrop for all scenes, interior and exterior, and it just didn’t make sense for a lot of the script. A more serious problem was the acting; several in the large cast just were not up to being convincing, let alone engrossing. Ma Joad was excellent, Grampa Joad was entertainingly manic until he died 20 minutes in. Tom Joad was hard to understand and his “okie” accent came and went. Oh well.
