High Renaissance

The Argonautica

This play was a in my opinion a very good interpretation of Jason and the Golden Fleece. The people that played the characters had very colorful personalities. They made the play seem very funny and I like that about this particular version. I think it was well put together.

I really liked the environment of the play even though there wasn’t much to it. When I first walked in to the theatre I noticed that there was no background or the darkness was the background. I have a theory that the reason that there was no background was to make sure it did not steal the attention from the characters. If you look at it that way then there was a background it was just really simple. When I saw the background I was interested in how they were going to use the background because the background is used in almost every play but it wasn’t used. In fact the people in the play themselves made the scenery during the play.

I also really liked the wooden thing around the sides of the stage. I liked it because I had never seen anything like it. It provided a creative means of getting off and on the stage. There was a door on the left side of the stage and it also held up the upper part of the ship which was also the place that the gods looked over them on. It also provided the trap doors on the bottom and the opening to the top of the stage. I felt that the whole in the ceiling of the stage helped the concept of the gods out a lot because if they had just walked on the stage every time they had an entrance then it would have been boring and mediocre. There was this part in the play in which the trap door in the bottom of the stage was very useful and that was when Hercules’ friend was taken by the water spirit. He also came back through the door to talk to Hercules.

Another smart part of the play was the bridge because it was also a place where the gods could look down on the people and also be in plain sight. This was good because with the opening in the ceiling the gods couldn’t be fully seen so the bridge gave an Idea of the gods seeing the humans from above. The other thing the bridge gave was the place of the king over the Argonauts. It made him seem untouchable and so much greater as far as class, wealth and power.

Another thing that I really liked was the portrayal of the monsters in the play. The day before the play I rattled my brain wondering how they were going to portray the monsters in the play because in my mind I had a fixed idea of what the monsters looked like. When I saw the monsters I was disappointed by the outward appearance. I am so used to the graphics of the TV spoiled me so I tried my best to get over the outward appearance. The monsters were creative as far as the use in the play. I didn’t think that the giant would be played by someone on sitting on someone else’s shoulders. I also enjoyed the bull fight. That was nothing like I pictured in my head but it was none the less interesting to see the guys run around as the bull. Another creature that was portrayed