On Friday evening I went with a friend to a play in the park. Novel idea wouldn't you say?
Grimm Tales spoofs the classic fairy tales. The cast were young, energetic and professional. The writing was clever and the audience laughed a lot.
Queen Elizabeth Park is in the centre of Vancouver. The main feature of the park are the gardens located in a quarry which, once upon a time, (clever, eh?) provided granite for construction in Vancouver. The gardens served as 'the forest' for the purpose of the play.
The audience followed Hansel and Gretel, the tour guides, with German accents, from point to point as several fairy tales were re-enacted (spoofed). The Bremen Town Four provided the music and a large portion of the humour. I'd love to include a sampling of the funnier lines but they were a tad risque and not suitable for more delicate sensibilities. To the writer's credit the play was suitable for kid's too.
It was a highly energetic outing for the actors and, to a lesser extent, the audience. After walking to the bottom of the quarry it is, naturally, necessary to climb back to the top.
As I do so often, I'm going to flout the CDP guidelines and include a couple (ok 3) pictures. Otherwise I don't think I could give much of an impression of the park or the play.
The pictures are truly dreadful but if I had to apologize for every dreadful picture I took I'd never get anything done. What I learned is that I can't photograph action for toffee.
Yes, the actors wouldn't stand still. and I had a deuce of a time fitting the actors and the audience into a shot, and the sun was behind the scene at the beginning and by the end there was no daylight at all, and I didn't want to cause too much disruption for the audience, and my dog died when I was 9. Sorry, I never had a dog. You know how it is when you get on a roll.
But I'm not making excuses. I accept full responsibility for the dismal quality of these shots.
Did I mention my camera isn't very good?
8 comments :
Darn it, Wayne, the last three pics won't load for me! After that big build-up, I wanted to see just how dismal they truly are! Actually, I wanted to see the action because it looks like so much fun. I love stuff like this and it doesn't surprise me that Vancouver would host such an event. I just love your city, BTW.
This is what I get for not even paying minimum wage.
I was up late last night with this and thought I'd figured out a shortcut. It looked like I could copy images from Picasa to the blog instead of downloading the image. So I did. And the pics showed up in my preview and I went to bed.
Until Laurie came by I was happily listening to A Prairie Home Companion blissfully ignorant of all the havoc I had wreaked.
I think the pics are up now. If they aren't, heads are going to roll around here.
No head rollin necessary. I got all your shots. One was all I needed . I am STILL laughing at the green elf in the foreground of photo #1. That's hilarious. You are right about trying to photograph crowds etc. It's just hard! I come home with garbage. Most go into the shiny silver trashcan on my Mac's dock.
don't worry about the rules they are guidelines not mandatory stipulations. The extra pics loaded fine here.
THERE they are!
Now that looks like a hoot. Did the audience participate a lot? I would think as an actor such a production would be terrifying -- you'd better know how to ad lib, right?
Thanks for taking us along, Wayne!
Laurie, it was a hoot. The actors interacted with the audience a little. But aside from the premise that Haaaahhhnzuull and Gretel had been hired as tour guides to show us around the forest there wasn't much audience participation.
This was a young a cast and crew and I was surprised at how solid their performances were.
A good time was had by all.
I likely would have gone back to try for nicer pics but the show closed the next night. From reading the programme I got the idea some of the cast were probably in theatre programs at one school or other and school starts tomorrow.
Oooh, my husband and I would have enjoyed this tremendously!
Whooeeee, this looks like fun! And I've been on a short bus/walking tour of the Queen Elizabeth Park, a very short one with Grayline. It's a lovely place.
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