Ryan in New York: An Enemy of the People

Rotorua's Ryan Christensen is in New York, he is keeping us posted with what he has been up to:

When I think of Broadway, I instantly think of musicals. What I didn't realise was that drama and comedy plays are on Broadway too. On Saturday night I saw my first Broadway  play and I'm sure won't be the last. Some plays have a student rush, so my friend Glenn from Strasberg and I were able to get amazing seats for next to nothing.

I had never heard of the play so was going in with no expectations and ideas about what I was going to see. The play was a highly political and emotive piece written by Henrik Ibsen. What we saw was a lesson in acting, it was really great to see something like this at such a high calibre. The level of realism and emotion was really something I should be aiming for.

Something that stood out to me from the first word, was there were no microphones. We were in a big beautiful theatre and the voices had no trouble at all reaching us in the mezzanine. Hopefully my vocal production classes will help me to develop the techniques needed to emulate this myself.

Two scenes stuck out to me as favourites. The first was a confrontation scene between the two brothers over the kitchen table. The passion in the argument between the two was so real, I almost felt awkward watching the scene. I felt like I had stumbled upon a family feud.

The other was a meeting set in a town hall. I enjoyed this scene mainly for how it was staged. A table was placed right at the front of the stage and the giving his speech to the packed town hall in front. Other members of the cast occupied the front row and made the audience the actual audience of the meeting. I was once again really sucked into the action. This scene ended with a backlit silhouette e of the brother in the middle of the stage before he exited. Really powerful stuff.

Although victimised in the play, the actors sure weren't an enemy of the audience.

To read more of Ryan's blog visit http://ryansweek.wordpress.com/