Oh What a Lovely War review

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Drama-review

The play I saw was Oh What a Lovely War by Theatre Workshop, directed by Adrian McDougall on 11/09/08 at ‘The Courtyard Centre for Arts in Hereford.

        The play was staged in a traditional Proscenium Arch production. I think the director chose to stage the play like this because a Proscenium Arch easily creates a fourth-wall between the audience and the actors; therefore it is very effective when the actors break the fourth-wall to talk to the audience.

        OWALW could be described as a non-naturalistic play. There are many factors that contribute to this description, for example, there is a lot of multi-rolling. This is a key tool of Brechtian theatre, multi-rolling alienates the audience. The set and costume are minimalistic, abstract props are used to represent objects. Also, the use of multi-media juxtaposes the dialogue from the actors. However, not much Physical Theatre is used so the play can be described as Stylised, with some elements of realism and naturalism, and not completely abstract. The multi-media was used to show serious messages and horrific pictures, this contrasted the comical acting which worked very well as it made the audience think about what they were seeing. The audience had to separate the serious messages from the comedy themselves instead of being told what to think by the actors.

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        These are all important tools of Bertolt Brecht who believed that people should not hang their brains up with their hats when they walked into the theatre. He wanted to mentally and morally challenge the audience through the use of stylised theatre, juxtaposition with songs and placards, and physical theatre.

        The set was minimalistic and very bare with only the actor’s instruments, the costumes which were hung on white crosses, a few stage blocks, a multi-media screen and the actors themselves. It almost looked as the though the actors were still rehearsing on a bare stage. I think the minimalistic ...

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