AM+Dan+&+Lemon


 * Aunt Dan and Lemon – critique **

// Good //

1. I was quickly impressed with the production upon entering the theater. Lemon, played by Paige Pulaski, was already sitting in her chair, sipping on her colorful drinks and looking around at the audience with an inquisitive face. I thought it was good that she was in character, and it got me in the mood for the play to start. Also, Pulaski stayed in character while she was just sitting on the side of the stage throughout flashbacks by blinking a lot and just acting strange in general. 2. After reading the play, I was very excited to see how well everyone could memorize his or her lines. It bewildered me that all of the actors were able to remember all of those lengthy monologues. I didn’t notice many mess-ups though, and none of the stumbles over words subtracted anything from the meaning on the play. All in all, there were no distracting mistakes, and I thought that all of the actors did a fantastic job memorizing difficult lines. 3. The set was very simple – a large table covered in a black pleather fabric, surrounded by five chairs - when it could have been much more complex. However, I thought the way that the play’s setting was executed suited it very well. I liked that the kitchen table could suddenly be transformed into a bed by the simple addition of a pillow and blanket. I think it added to the fact that everything was a memory – you can’t remember every detail, so the exact layout of the memory was blurred and got the point across. 4. I thought Lemon’s living area was designed nicely. The chair, rugs, and lamp looked slightly tattered and worn. Also, the three colored drinks on the table added to the oddness of her pitiful situation. 5. Most of the costumes were good. Aunt Dan always looked edgy, which I thought was appropriate, while Lemon was dressed in a frumpy/grandma-ish outfit, as if she was slowly withering away. While watching the play, I felt that the other costumes were appropriate, except for small things that I will comment on in the // Bad //.

// Not So Good //

1. I thought Jasper’s pajama pants, which had a “get lucky” pattern on them, were not appropriate attire for the stud that he was supposed to be portraying. If I saw a man wearing kiddie pajama pants like that, I would not be attracted to him. Maybe the pants were thought to express his character well, but I felt like he should have instead just been wearing a casual boxers and a t-shirt instead. 2. Mindy’s leggings were distracting her. They frequently fell down, and as she delivered her lines or listened to someone say their own lines, she was constantly messing with them to pull them back up. Not only did it distract her, but her constant fixing of her leggings distracted me as an audience member as well. 3. I found it confusing that some of the actors played multiple roles. I realize that in university theater, there are sometimes limitations to the number of actors available. However, through all of the flashbacks and rapid story changes, it was hard to see actors as different characters each time, when it was so obvious that they were the same actor. I was especially confused by the roles of Chelsey Horn and Matthew Bowdren. First seeing them as Lemon’s mother and father and Aunt Dan’s best friends, I just imagined them being the friends in the flashback, when they actually were other people. The way I remember it, Bowdren wore the same outfit (or very similar outfits) for each of his roles, and I think this was another reason I was confused. 4. When Lemon was sitting in her chair, I thought she did a pretty good job of looking sickly. However, sometimes she would walk around while giving a monologue and I didn’t think that she looked sick anymore when she was walking. Since she talked about how she was going to die soon, I feel like she should have portrayed herself as more “ill” through her motions. 5. I think that more could have been done with the lighting. It seemed that, besides the scene when Mindy kills the man and the lights are red, the lighting was the same throughout. Sometimes I was confused as to when a new flashback was occurring, so maybe something could have been done with the lights in these situations. Since the monologues were so long, I just feel that something should have been done to make them more exciting, and lighting changes could have perhaps contributed to the excitement.