November 17, 2011: Saginaw Valley State University’s Production of Michael Hollinger’s "Incorruptible"

I really enjoyed this performance! There were many things I liked about it. First off, the comedy was amazing. Seeing it performed made the physical comedy that Hollinger includes in the stage directions much more humorous.  

Many of the actors were spot on to my reading of the script and the character information given. The actor playing Olf: amazing. The Peasant Woman: Spot on! Charles: perfect. Marie: Great.

I also really liked the set; it was very well designed and decorated. I did not expect that for a play at a University, which though have professionals working on them, are not always high budget productions. This set was up with the quality of the stuff we saw in Stratford in October.

That being said, there were some major issues I had with the performance. Firstly, Martin spoke way to fast! I loved the pompous almost feminine flair he gave off, but he needed to slow his lines down. Had I not been familiar with the material, I wouldn’t have gotten many of his jokes. In fact, I was the only one in the theater who did many times. Yeah, we had a conversation about being the only person laughing earlier that day in class…

I did not like the fit they had Agatha throw towards the end of her stage time. What was that about? That was way over the top and unnecessary. It was funny, to a point, but then it just became over dramatic (can you really be over dramatic with a character in a play? I wonder what Pirendello would say about this....).

The final thing that stuck out to me that was different than my reading of the play was Jack. He was not the central character in the performance. In fact, Charles and Martian kind of take over the lime light a little bit. The director kind of made him come off as weak in the play. He gets pushed very easily around by Marie on stage several times. He kind of just seems to be caught up in the rush over everything, and not really the true master mind behind most of it. I think it does make some sense to make Charles the center of the play on one level, because Charles has a back story that is much longer and richer than Jack's. However, Jack’s miracle at the end and good deed felt a bit crowded over by than it should have been! This was slightly frustrating because they are the total purpose of the play itself.

All and all though, this was a really good performance. I enjoyed it, and laughed probably more than reading it for class last week. The physical comedy takes this play to the next level, and I think this play, might make some sort of entrance into cannon future. I was pleased with a lot, the quality of the actors and their performance especially. I also really liked the set and the line delivery was verbatim of the script. There were not really major scene switches or changes other than a few directors’ interpretations that bothered me. However, I don’t expect to agree with every version of a play I see and I certainly enjoyed this one. This performance was memorable in many ways, which is good because like all live performances, they are unrepeatable.