I thoroughly enjoyed last night’s performance at the Williams Art Center. I knew nothing about the play beforehand and was not sure what to expect. It was a great play about the power of storytelling. The cast brought the stories to life while adding personal comical bits to their roles. Each cast member had to play multiple characters, as the storytelling narratives call for, and they did a great job moving in between these different roles.
When I went to pick up the tickets for the performance the teller made a joke about our VaST class title. “So I guess you didn’t have to buy any books for the class”. The play demonstrated the power that stories and knowledge can have. We have viewed many different kinds of narratives from scrolls to book arts in this course. It seemed very logical that a performance as a form of storytelling, on the very subject of storytelling, would come next.
I agree that the cast did a great job transitioning roles and adding their own personalities to each. The different stories really came to life throughout the performance.
The performance was definitely a success. I especially liked the “whats in the bag” scene. And after finding out that this scene was done as improv made it even better.
Prior to this class, I thought of stories as being confined to English and literature classes. Throughout this semester though, I have begun to realize that storytelling is incredibly powerful and necessary in any situation–business, medicine, law, etc. Stories are a way to communicate with others, persuade them, and spread knowledge. The ability to tell a story is an incredibly important life skill to have in my opinion.