Wednesday’s presentation of Arabian Nights surprised me, both with the skill of the actors and the overall production. It was obvious that a great amount of work came to bringing this script to life. Not only was the set elaborate and the acting superb, but the story itself was an interesting and entertaining one. What I was particularly impressed by was the storytelling method, where stories were occurring within other stories. I had previously encountered this method in books, but have never sen it done live on a stage before. The actors did an excellent job with utilizing this method. Not only was there a natural flow to this story development, but everything was clear and I never found myself lost. I am very happy I attended this performance, as it opened my mind up to diferent methods of storytelling.
I agree. I knew the premise of Arabian Nights, but never thought of having a story within a story within a story. In my opinion, it really added another dimension to the production.
I also agree that they did a great job with telling a story within a story. It is easy to get lost but I think a lot of elements came into play with telling the stories. The lights and set and choreography all play a huge part in a successful performance.
I think that the way in which the story within a story aspect of the play was presented was very clear and made it easy to understand that a story within a story was what was being portrayed. I feel it could have been very easy to complicate this concept and make it difficult for the audience to understand what was happening. They did a great job with demonstrating this.
The work that went into the play also struck me as well. Just memorizing all the lines for an hour and a half show must have taken an immense amount of time. These students really put a lot of work in and it showed.