Earthquake 64 Analysis

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The quiet murmur of polite voices filled the din of the theatre. On February 8th, I sat down in the middle row of the Amphitheatre, ready to watch “Earthquake ‘64”, a local production about a natural disaster. With Brian Cook as the Director, with a devised playwright by the cast, this was held by the Alaska Anchorage Department of Theatre and Dance in the Fine Arts Building. The general idea given on the pamphlet, that it was a “... historical experience that none of us had, and thus can only imagine.” However that’s not at all that was presented the moment the curtains were drawn. It opened with a somber showing of the entire cast of characters, speaking lines out of order of the play at key moments in the plot. Mainly to showcase each …show more content…

Every single emotive moment was undercut in one way or another by a poop joke, a funny dog gag, or having said dog figuratively urinate over the first row of the audience. All of which is played by one character, that by many in the lobby declared with glee, “Stole the show”. Becca Padrick played two characters in “Earthquake ‘64”: Coattails and Benny. Coattails is a muse-like character that arrives in between scenes and plays music about “squeezing one out during an earthquake”. Benny is the family dog of one of the most emotionally-driven points in the story, begins to talk to give a “sick burn” to her drunk owner, and at one point, ate poop which was substituted with chocolate pudding smeared across her face. Becca Patrick had, from the moment she walked onto the stage, an enormous charisma that is extremely hard to ignore. Every scene she was apart of, had me watch fixedly on her even when she was supposed to be idle in the background. Every moment she was on stage she was either the main focus, or so active that it was distracting from the main cast who were having a heartfelt …show more content…

The orange tones and dark silhouettes to present tone and emotion about fallen souls, or the shimmery patterns on the floor to represent water was phenomenal. Everything was deliciously professional about the lighting and sound, except for two specific instances. The first time was the bridge music and the second was the climactic scene where a family of five was whittled down to the parents alone amidst a tsunami. The latter example was so confusing in their song choice, that as there was a cut in the intermission, the audience continued to look around as if that was supposed to be a joke or a serious scene. “Requiem for a Dream” has been so overused in terms of dramatic tension that to use it seriously in a play caused major discomfort in the audience. Overall, despite having an overall negative outlook on this play, the people around me in the end didn’t seem too upset. When I was hung up over how “base” and “pandering” it was to the audience, and tried to prey on every emotion one could have in hopes of landing just a few notes instead of putting work into the stronger scenes they had to make the emotion more potent-- it seemed to not bother anyone but myself. People were laughing, clapping along, and even though they had the mild bout of confusion and awkward silence, didn’t seem like it ruined

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