Flight

“Flight” is a play by Russian playwright Mikhail Bulgakov. The play sets in the years of turmoil at the end of the Civil War during which a group of people were tied together by fate while trying to survive the ordeal. It could also be seen as a semi-autobiography of part of the playwright’s own life.

This version is a NIDA second year production interpretation (with a cast of first year acting students as the crowd) of the play using the huge space provided by the Parade Theatre. A lot of value was put into this production. Apart from a huge cast, every detail from costume, make up, props and sets and even changing of stage were thoroughly thought through (and some of them pretty cool). The actions played out on a slanted wooden platform with two levels of radiating contours stretching out from the centre – a simple yet very versatile performance space. However, it is also because of this design that the stage was littered with traps. There were many times that actors miscalculated the height of the steps and tripped over or nearly lost balance during the actions. They masked the mistakes skillfully most of the time but after several stunts you will start to worry who will be the next victim of the stage.

This is a huge production with a huge cast. The deployment of the first year students as crowds and other ensemble characters gave them a chance to get involved and be seen. However, it is also because of the huge number of actors on stage that actually affect the delivery of the play and this is particularly obvious during the first half. Unlike musicals in which the chorus was usually tightly written into the production, for plays, when you deploy a huge cast of actors onto the stage, they have to serve a purpose. This is exactly what was lacking in this production. A lot of time these background actors were on the stage doing what they need to do but then they lack a purpose. For purpose I mean not only as backdrop but also what they are supposed to do as characters on the stage, how they are going to enrich the actions and tell the audience that they are essential in the scene. This is where this production fell short. Even worse was that at times they became distractions to the main actions of the leads and you can hardly concentrate on the main actions because there were so many other actors doing this and that all the time. This gave the audience a fragmented and shattered experience that nobody benefited from. The second half of play was a lot better as it focused on the main characters instead (or finally) and gave the audience a better experience or a chance to escape into the characters’ world. I am not saying that NIDA should not use that many actors, but they have to use them correctly. I remember when I saw “Jarabin” and “All in Good Timing”, they too had lots of actors on stage, but each actor was integrated in the whole production that you didn’t find them distracting or ruining your experience. So if NIDA wants to do a huge production like this one again in the future, that is one of things they have to look into and improve.

The main cast delivered a satisfactory but sometimes offbeat performance. Strangely enough, as a drama school that should be focusing strongly on stage acting, there were some real voice projection issues in this production. It could be because the space is huge, but I personally did not remember there were such issues with other similar performances, especially considering productions such as “The Plough and the Star” (with Ian Roberts), which only had a few actors throughout, didn’t have such issues. Neither did I remember that graduates from last year had such issues on their agent’s day performance. Apart from the crowd sometimes drowning out the main characters, or sometimes loud background music deafening your ears during the lines, there were times that when the actors were upstage, you could hardly hear them (and I was in the seventh row from the stage). And there were also times that you could just hear them mumbling their words with “lazy tones” (e.g. missing out consonants) that you needed to figure out the lines with the context. However, the actor who played Khludov (I think his name is Ross) was brilliant throughout. The journey he brought us through with his character was well executed and you could actually experience the journey with him. Also the actor who played Paramon was great too. The monologue on “the importance of a dollar” was so well done that you just couldn’t help but being blown away by his commitment to the character. The other actors were not bad actors (I’d seen them all in last year’s Chekov and Sonnets) but it seemed to me that the aforementioned voice issues really took out a lot from them. I was surprised as some of them were pretty good with lots of potential when I saw them as first years last year in their rehearsal room performances.

“Flight” was an above average production. It has great potentials but the issues mentioned above taxed out a lot from it. The play certainly got a lot better in the second half but as I saw tonight quite a number of the audience left during the intermission (one of them in my group left too). However, I personally would recommend those who go to see it to stay and soldier on, as the second half is really where you see great actions playing out on the stage. Also, the high production value that was put into this play would make your money worth. At the end of the day it is after all not an average amateur production. However, if NIDA want to put on similar scale productions in the future, issues mentioned above must be rectified to make them more enjoyable.