Life To The Play And The Audience example essay topic

A viewing of The Solid Gold Cadillac by George S. Kaufman and Howard Teichman, took place on Friday the 21st of March at the Brisbane Arts Theatre. The Solid Gold Cadillac is a narrative piece concerning four smug directors of General Products Incorporation, and a timid small shareholder whose clever questioning at the annual stockholders meeting causes a stir with the director's self-satisfaction. Posing a threat to the company, the directors decide to keep her quiet by buying her off with a phony job in the company. Then the fun starts to begin.

It is a fairytale and is almost the story of Cinderella and the four ugly company directors. The play is the exploration of corporate mismanagement, greed and corruption, which is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago. Each character seemed to work off each other with each actor giving cartoon like performances. The script was well written and the cast interpreted it with apparent ease. It was a clever screenplay filled with humor, charming moments and insightful one-liners.

Strong, over the top accents added to the amusing affect of the play. However, at times, the cast seemed to work too hard on maintaining their accents that poignant moments are lost and comic opportunities slipped by. Helen Royle played the main role of the quiet natured Mrs. Laura Partridge. She seemed to fit into her role quite easily, bringing an overall warming presence to the play. As the play progressed, so did the characters relationships. There was a building of tension between Mrs. Partridge and the four directors.

Nevertheless, one stand out relationship was the one between Mrs. Partridge and Edward L. McKeever. McKeever with his full on "out there" character compared with the calm, softly spoken and soothing manner of Laura Partridge. They were able to generate a certain chemistry that brought the stage alight. Although the overall performance of the actors were first-rate, there were a few moments where the some actors slipped up with their lines, however, it was cleverly disguised and were able to continue on without any hesitation. The most eye-catching performance of the play was the character Edward L. McKeever, who was played by Jeff Car uss.

He is a full-on high-energy character - "I don't get ulcers. I give them" brought life to the play and the audience. As the play developed, so did the set. Mrs. Partridge's plain office began to take a more homely appearance, with the inclusion of photos and an old fashioned radio tuned in to the fifties. Although the set itself was fairly bland, it was authentic to the fifties and the set added to the corporate theme with old telephones and office equipment. Costuming was excellent, with old style suits and the costume design for Mrs. partridge bought the plays 1950's theme to life.

Lighting did not play a major role in the play, apart from the lighting at the beginning of each scene and a fade away at the end of each scene. There was no focus on a certain character in particular, however, each scene opened with the narrator setting the scene where the lighting would focus on the narrator, so that the attention would only be focused upon him. Furthermore, at the end of each scene as the curtains would close and as the backstage staff began to assemble the set for the next scene, the music that would be played added to the fifties theme as this music originated from that era. Although this piece was presented in front of a half packed house, the audience members had positive reactions to the actors and the play. The clever wordplay and comical script were taken well by the audience and laughs were all in appropriate places, however in my opinion, if the theatre were full, it would have provided a better atmosphere for the actors to feed off the audience and provide a more significant performance. In the opening scene, the four smug directors were hosting an annual stockholders meeting.

It was as if the audience was the stockholders attending the meeting. This gave the audience a sense of belonging as if the audience was playing an active role in the play itself. In addition to this, someone from the audience stood up and became involved in the play. This was a surprise to the audience as the usher had seated her, as if she was an ordinary paying customer. Overall the play has well defined characters accompanied with a good script and judging from the audience's reaction as well as mine, it was a thoroughly entertaining look at the corporate world in the 1950's.