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Harry And The Thief Play Analysis

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Thursday, March 8, 2018, at Frostburg State University in the F. Perry Smith Studio Theatre, I saw the play Harry & The Thief by Sigrid Gilmer. The play was directed by Mairzy Yost-Rushton. I came to this play expecting a serious message about slavery and how Harriet Tubman got the slaves to their destination. While that is what the play was about, I wasn't focused on that message. The reason for this is the comedic level that the play had, specifically how the actors would act. The main plot was Harry getting the slaves to freedom, as well as Mimi coming to help Harry. The comedic approach made this play actually entertaining and not one of those boring serious plays, that most people fall asleep watching. The main reason for the play being …show more content…

It all started with Anita played by Habtamu Anderson. He really made his role believable to the point that I honestly thought he was an actual girl at first. That based on the fact that he was supposed to be a drag queen. The way he carried himself was perfect. This is from the way he walked and talked it that showed he was really acting like a drag queen. The way he was able to interact with the crowd and stage crew was amazing. He would do say funny statements in regards to what the crowd would have done or how someone on the stage crew looked. One of the best things he did was when the audio for the mics messed up and did a loud annoying sound. You would think he would of went out of character. This was not the case, he handled it in the best way possible. He just came them a look …show more content…

First, the lighting and the use of it was great. You had moments when they had to replicate the action of the use of the time machine. The way they had the lights swirling around while the character was in the time machine traveling to their destination. Once they got there they would shine a single bright light to show the door opening, which happens once you get out the time machine. That whole setup was perfect. Overall the lighting was great. The costumes were also great as well. They really reflected the clothes that they wore in the 1850s. I was really impressed with all the different costumes they had for Anita. He had to have 5 different costumes throughout the play. Each outfit was bright and caught my attention. The costumes really gave the impression of him being a drag queen. Finally, the sounds of the play were excellent as well. They had many sounds that helped make the play great. They had the train horn sound whenever Harry would come around and would pull like she was pulling the string to sound the horn on a train. This was the interpretation of what they called the trail that Harry would take slaves on to freedom. They called the whole operation the underground railroad. This was a great incorporation of that when Sigrid Gilmer was writing the play. All these different aspects made the play great and worth going to

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The house was almost entirely filled and the show was about to begin. As the show began, I had noticed that they incorporated young children in the play; at the beginning, they were sitting around in a circle and throughout the play, they had them sit in a single line on each side of the stage to signify that story telling appearance. However, they also got up to sing along on stage with the rest of the cast, which was an interesting feature of the show. I enjoyed seeing the characters walk up the stairs along the sides of the auditorium; even though the actors are not necessarily breaking the fourth wall, it made me feel as though I was involved and being recognized. I appreciated the fact that the entire cast were all under the age of twenty, which can really make a difference in the eyes of younger viewers; as a young audience member, seeing actors my age made me feel relatable to them compared to an older cast.

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I loved the placement of different props on stage, like how the first scene where Vivian is first diagnosed was off center to the right. The single spotlights added more emphasis on certain points in the play and I thought that added more to the environment, especially when Vivian would have another monologue and she would step forward towards the audience while the extras moved around the props in the back to change the scene. For sound, I thought the background music for the ending scene really captured the mood for the death of Vivian Bearing. It wasn’t exactly a grieving style of music but it was calming at the same time. Also, the lighting and sound effects for the x-ray scene was outstanding.

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I found the time period to be perfect time frame for when the play written for because the time period was 1984 for old fishing lodge because all the furinate look time furinate like when it look in the 1984 era. The foreigner play set look like old time 1984 Georgia fishing lodge for people to hangout as community and talk to one another. I found the actor costume to be perfect fit for the set and time period because all the actor costumes look like 1984-time period clothes like the one they would wear in that time era. I found the costume to be perfect fit for the actor that were wear it because it was portraying their character personality on stage. I found if any costume change to be perfect and not confusing to the audience because everyone knew why they need to change their costume during the theater production.

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Unlike the play in the Gene Frankel Theatre the storyline stuck just like the book illustrated it to be. The actors in the play gave a believable interpretation. Besides not being a glammed up play the actors gave it they’re all and presented the book in a correct form, by their accents, their posture and stance how they carefully pronounced their words. My favorite performer was Lennie played by Alexander Kafarakis he was able to bring his character to life just as written in the book. He was able to show Lennies mental disability with his slow thinking and speech patterns.

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Overall though I thought the play was very good, the set was great, the actors were amazing. I would definitely recommend seeing this

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The content was indeed clear because of the costumes, lighting, and accents that the characters had. All of these forms in Witch helped the audience (and myself) stay engaged in the content and keep the theme of the play consistent throughout. Marzolf, along with the designers and actors, all paired together perfectly to create the feeling as if I was in the play myself. They all did a great job of keeping the play focused on one time period, one setting, and one

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The performers did an excellent job acting out the parts they were assigned. In the beginning of the first act, I made a note of them being very rocky in the beginning and only acting with their body language and not much with their emotions, but once they got more comfortable on stage they brought the characters to life. The main actor, Chaz Pitman, who played the role as Ben, impressed me the most because he was both the main actor and the director of the play. His acting was very believable and at the end when he was having a mental breakdown, I shed a few tears due to how convincing he made it seem. Jeeter and Salyer, who were played by Hal Greer and Kat Lys were the other two actors who captivated my attention.

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Over all the actors and the people working behind the scenes did an spectacular job put on a incredible play, the only criticism I have is that there was only one setting the entire deration of the play,

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It was so fun and entertaining to follow along. The characters, the music, the props, everything was amazing and I hope I can see it again one day. It helps that it is more modern and easier to understand for people my age and younger. My overall impression of the performance was great. I could tell that each one of the characters was fully dedicated to and gave one-hundred percent to portraying their characters perfectly.

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The design of the scenes where appropriate for the tone of the play. As soon the play started it was dark it showed Dracula in a big shadow that really set the mood for the whole entire play. The scenes were set up nice with enough space between I liked how the director worked with what he had. I honestly couldn’t tell the location just from the set it wasn’t anything that just made it obvious that they where in London, England in the 1890s. The costume designs were put together extremely well I believe Teresa Longbotham did great.

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