Heavenly Concept, Earthly Energy

In any production, a director would always try to catch the audience’s attention by using effective blocking and flow in conjunction with the actors’ delivery of their lines to produce an energy that keeps the audience interested. If there isn’t enough of this energy, audiences will tend to get restless, looking at their watches, wondering what was on Oprah that night, etc. Louie’s at 1st & Main had a great storyline and the actors delivered it well, but I wasn’t completely captivated, due to blocking mishaps that took away from the energy of the scene.

Energy must be constantly flowing, especially during entrances and exits to keep audiences enthralled. The doors were definitely important to character entrances and exits, but they also acted like a brick wall to the energy of the scene when a character exited. When a character delivered their last line, all was silent and still as they jiggled their key into the lock of the door to make their exit. This made the energy come crashing down, and I was lost as an audience member until the energy picked back up. My suggestion to the director would be to let the actor say their final lines as they are opening the door.

Blocking combined with the text can also determine the “strength” of a character. If a character has weak blocking in comparison to their fervent lines, then the audience would be left confused as to why such a verbally strong character isn’t showing that strength standing up. The character of Sgt. Tracy is chock full of passionate lines, but I was left confused as to why the director let such a strong character make movements that directly contradicted those lines. Sgt. Tracy seemed to make weaving movements all too often; he didn’t pick a spot and stuck with it strongly. One of the most rudimentary techniques of character strength in acting, as a director would say is picking a spot and planting your feet, not shuffling back and forth and keeping your weight shifted unevenly. Some actors aren’t comfortable with standing in one spot because they’d think that that would take away from the scene, but quite the contrary, one dedicated position does more for a scene than unmotivated zigzags.

Pacing is whether the spoken lines are able to click, one after the other, making an effective rhythm for creating and maintaining energy. A great example that demonstrates this is the scene between Dimitri and the Bright Girl, when Dimitri trades his mother’s unicorn to the girl. Not only did their lines come right after the other, keeping an effective rhythm, but they also had very strong blocking to compliment their scene. Because of these, I believed this scene to be one of the strongest of the show.

As I’ve said, I wasn’t completely captivated, but I was still captivated nonetheless. The director overlooked some blocking mishaps that could have made a positive effect on some scenes, but overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this show and fully recommend it from an audience member’s perspective. Though those with a heavy theatre background, like this audience member, might wince a few times from glaring mishaps that an untrained eye might not catch.

~Chris McVey