Phrases: Angela Ferguson / Images: WAC & Storyhouse
This summer season we received to take in the spectacle that’s Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre in additional methods than one.
It was a magical August night after we returned to the park to look at Oscar Wilde’s comedy, The Significance of Being Earnest.
The gifted solid had been very good in bringing Wilde’s story about main a double life towards a backdrop of ‘well mannered’ Victorian society to life.
As ever, they demonstrated simply how ridiculously gifted all of them are, juggling appearing with taking part in an array of musical devices to supply a really immersive expertise.
And on the evening we went alongside to look at there was one other would-be solid member making an attempt – however failing – to upstage the actors – the summer season rain.
The eye-seeking climate entrance might have put a damper on proceedings however the heat and wit of the solid remodeled it into a really particular and distinctive shared expertise.
There have been good rain-themed advert libs so as to add to the comical characterisations on the coronary heart of this basic play, described by Wilde as a “severe comedy for trivial individuals”.
The play seems to be on the experiences of nation gentleman, Jack Worthing and the cynical and worldly Algernon, who each lead double lives once they turn out to be ‘Ernest’.
Watching the solid, together with James Sheldon (John [Jack] Worthing), Lucas Button (Algernon) and Yolanda Ovide (Cecily) exchanging witty quips and figuring out seems to be whereas being soaked by the fixed downpour added to the spectacle.
The efficiency was an immersive expertise anyway, with viewers members introduced into the drama at instances, to a lot amusement, however this took it to a unique stage.
There was uproarious laughter because it felt like we had been all in it collectively, sharing the thrill of theatre in our wonderful park and the good British summer season.
A few of us might have left the theatre relatively soggier than after we first entered, but it surely made for a vastly memorable evening – and a welcome escape from our day-to-day lives.
And it was a welcome reminder of simply why theatre is so highly effective.
You simply by no means fairly know what to anticipate – and that’s all a part of the joys.
It was a much-needed tonic.
And as we dried off again dwelling and chatted about our night we knew it was one which we might all the time treasure.
Nicely executed to all these behind these epic productions within the park, together with the workers and volunteers from Storyhouse.
We’re so blessed to have such theatre in Chester, complementing all the different gifted native theatre firms in and across the metropolis.
Grosvenor Park Open Theatre involves an finish on Sunday, 1 September, with The Significance of Being Earnest the ultimate present.
We’d extremely suggest a go to earlier than it ends.
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