English2200

I felt quite a contrast in my feelings towards some elements of the play vs. others. Characters for example, Benedict I felt was played extremely well, I felt similar emotion for his character in the live action play as I did when reading the play. Not the same for some of the other characters, some I felt indifferent towards when watching the play (Beatrice), others I disliked (The Friar). I think it really depends on how you felt they should be portrayed when reading it, and how that stacks up to how they are played and whether you can adjust your opinion based on what you observed. For me in the case of the friar, I felt like the actor was reading directly from a script when saying his lines, that and the manner in which he spoke was obnoxious, kind of that cadence so many people take when reading Shakespeare just because it uses that old style language (thou etc).
Tempo was a large part of hit or miss for me. The tempo of the lines read really added to the humor at times, made it too silly at other times and made the play unrealistic and hard to follow some of the time. In this way the play was frustrating for me to watch because it was so enjoyable at some moments and at others the opposite.
The song sung by Claudio was the most interesting part I found. In my copy of the play, a side section talks about how the song sung at the grave is not always credited to Claudio. Meaning it could be his servants or another that actually sings it. For me, this is a huge impact on how you feel about a large part of the plays message by the end. In the live production we saw, Claudio singing at the grave did a lot for gaining sympathy for his character, afterward it becomes more of a happy ending for things to work out for him. That scene was staged quite beautifully, I really enjoyed watching it unfold live. But I wonder how I would have felt had it not been Claudio that sung the ballad. I most likely would have detested Claudio more had it not been he who sung the song.
I did enjoy the alteration of characters to fit a female mold. Don "Juana" was very interesting. I felt she recited her lines little too arrogantly, but I mainly enjoyed it because it highlighted the possibility of how differently characters can be portrayed. I had only read the first two acts before seeing it. I enjoyed and got more out of the parts I hadn't read yet... I felt that says a lot about how a large part of my enjoyment was based off what I expected and not what I was absorbing from the play. Overall pretty good experience, it really makes me want to see more productions to see different renditions.