Lost Largs Mountain Ruby Mine

Gee, I missed a day on the blog, but I do have a good excuse.  Sharon & I went to see the following show, and then the next day celebrated her parents' wedding anniversary with a lunch at their place.

It was a fun night out, with a fully catered dinner of quite a high standard.  The melodrama was written by a local author about local geographical features and local historical events.  The standard of acting and direction was very high.  The play itself was written by an amateur author, however, and was an excellent shell of a work, but could benefit from a few workshops.

When you buy a commercially published play or novel, what you are getting is the culmination of maybe a year or more work from an author.  You can be confident that you are reading probably the twentieth or even twenty-fifth draft of a book.  People have made comments, and editor has suggested certain areas need to be tightened up or even completely re-written, and it shows in the results.

This play was far too long.  The poetic doggerel sections although quite interesting at the start, just started to drag on and on.  They were intially being used as a device in order to cover the scene changes, and worked quite well with a woman reciting interludes while sitting on a dunny down right.  However when a parrot called Sid sitting on a perch down left later ALSO started off with the doggerel, it was clear that the author needed to be taken to one side and told enough is enough, make some cuts!

I hasten to add the actors and direction were very good, and it IS far better to see a bad play done well rather than a good play done badly.  If you're after a great Christmas outing yielding a lot of fun, and you're not a regular theatre-goer, might I suggest you get along to the show. It'd be great if you went along with half-a-dozen friends. I'll add Maitland Repertory Society's URL to this post if you want further information - click on the title of the post (above) to visit their site.