While I am not usually a fan of classical art museums, the Victoria and albert museum had some very interesting displays, my favorite of which unsurprisingly being the theatre and film exhibit. The first thing that really caught my eye was the miniature sets on display, showcasing the scenery in a way that would be hard to do with just a photograph. I was also really captured by some of the costumes that were on display, especially the costume for scar from the lion king play. I have always had a fascination with puppetry and find it really interesting how the play merged elements of puppetry into the costumes to create more animalistic and animated appearances. Being up close to the costume also made me realize the intricacy of the patterning of the fabric used for the costume. It has a gradient throughout with checkered-esque pattern that further sells the illusion of a lion’s coat
While not directly related to the production, one of the set models that I saw (pictured below) reminded me a lot of the set of Benjamin Button. Both seem to have a broken down nautical theme, which by incorporating elements of the ever changing sea and the dilapidation caused by time related strongly to core components of the story.
On the television side of things I really liked the His Dark Materials displays. They had puppets that were used as stand in’s during the filming of the show that were then replaced with CGI. I was very impressed with the construction and effort put into building these puppets despite the fact that they would not actually show up on screen. This was especially true for the heads of the animals, which were extremely detailed and well painted. I believe that this level of effort was put in to give the CGI artists a good reference point for lighting and shadows when creating the scenes.
Outside of the theatre and film exhibit I really enjoyed walking through the Japan exhibit. While somewhat small compared to the others in the museum, it had some really interesting pieces. I really enjoyed looking at the netsuke, which are little statues that used to be used to keep cords tied on kimonos. They had quite a large collection of these, and they all depicted different things. I was surprised at the diversity in styling, material, and subject matter among these relatively small statues.
The afternoon after visiting the Victoria and Albert museum I went independently to see a play called the House of Games. While not terrible it was definitely my least favorite out of the shows I have seen here so far. I am not sure whether it was the plays writing or acting, but the dialogue felt very off for much of the play. It also relied heavily on a character being very charismatic, but that did not transfer to the stage very well and it ended up just feeling very awkward. The plot also hinges on there being a great amount of chemistry between said character and the main character, which is unfortunately not achieved. I feel like part of the reason that the show disappointed me as much as it did is because it focussed on subjects I am really interested in, psychology and games, but I feel like it did not handle them well. This was especially prevalent in how it handled the main character, who was a psychiatrist. Either little research was done into the career or she was meant to be a very bad psychiatrist, but in her sessions she did very little to help her client and outside of them she behaved very inappropriately interfering with his personal life. However the play still had some good moments and the climax was fairly entertaining. I really liked the set, which was a double layer with the therapist’s office on top and a shady dive bar on bottom. Overall while it was not great I would say it was worth the 10£ I spend just to get out and see a show
Theatre in London U of A 