Essay, Research Paper: Lend Me A Tenor

Steven Brink
Intro to Theatre
Summary of “Lend Me a Tenor”
In the following summary of Lend Me a Tenor I will look at many different aspects affecting the play such as: actors, directing, lighting, scenery, costumes, text, and characters. With myself seeing this play eight times and almost getting all of the lines down myself I know that this will be the best summary of this play, or at least hope. What I am going to try to do is walk you from the beginning to the end pointing out the points that I think are important to the play.
When you walk into the Blair Hall Theater the energy that comes from the house and stage area flows out into the waiting room and just gets you ready to go and see this play. When you follow the usher into the house you see a giant curtain lit up with eight-inch lights with red gels in front of them and if when you are seated the chairs are very comfortable with plenty of legroom so that you are not uncomfortable for the play. One last thing before we start the play you hear the sounds of opera and many classical tunes kind of to put you in the mood the play. Ok so here we go, the curtain opens slow for an operatic fill to it and with the sounds of an opera tenor star Tito Marellie we see what is a bedroom and a living room, which is in the hotel suite for Tito.
With all the times I saw the play I could see that the actors worked together so well to support each other and to create this world that you could be apart of. One of the hardest characters I thought it would take to play was the character Max. This person goes through so much during the play but at the end gets the reward that he deserves. Another thing you would notice is that no matter where you sat you could hear the actor or actress due to the theater and due to the projection of their voices. There is one character I did not like and that would be the character Julia. It was just her personality that I could not stand and that was the point of the character and the actress used a voice that just added to this so I would have to say that the actress did a good job I just didn’t like the character. Due to the knowledge I could hear the lines that the actors and actresses missed and when they were missed the others would help by adlibbing to make sure that the lines made it in that to me shows good support. The director Kay Bosse, was very precise when it came down to what she wanted to happen. She was very precise on stage direction, which is a very key factor in this play.
On the set you would see a predominantly black and grayish wall with directions and equipment that went with the time area that this play was taking place in. The setting of the entire play is told to you in the mid-first act, which is in the hotel suite for Tito. If are one who pays attention to detail then you notice the little things that actually made the set complete such as the phones, radio, pens phone book we made sure that all the props were present at the time the play took place. The set was a very real looking set to the fashion of the world at the time. The costumes I must say fit the characters very well such as the light blue suit that Max wore at the beginning when he was like a servant and with him ending up in a very nice and expensive suit at the end when he becomes an equal to his boss. I must also I thought that the clothes wore by Diana fit together with her character as a sluty woman who would do anything to get ahead such as the low cut dress and the towel she wears in Act 2. The last thing that I saw making a very big difference was the lighting, with the tint that the crew had on the stage at certain times would set the mood. No matter what was going on the stage the lighting was right for the mood for example is the mood was serious then the lighting would be a little darker and more centered to that place on the stage.
So in closing I must say that I did enjoy watching the play it was quite entertaining and I have also learned the theater can be more fun to see than a movie. Also I think that the curtain speed was good because that is what I did and I think I did an exquisite job at it.

Steven Brink
Intro. Theater
3-1-00
Lend Me a Tenor



Bibliography


Blair Hall


Word Count: 834