Review of Neobeth as Performed by the Meri Players

     Double, double, toil and trouble;

     Fire burn and cauldron bubble

     Filet of a Belonthiss

     In the cauldron boil and hiss

     Toe of Carma, eye o’ Mortog

     Wing of Barbat, tongue of Bearog

     For a charm of powerful trouble

     Like Moltara, boil and bubble

      22nd Day of Sleeping, Y23

     So begins the Witches' Spell from the Meridellian Players' interpretation of the famous play. I take these notes from inside the playhouse, and, as always, look forward to sharing my review of the performance with my avid Neopian Times readers.

     I'll begin by acknowledging that the Meridellian Players took a unique approach to the adaptation and instead of reimagining it for just one new time and place, different scenes and characters each have their own twist. It starts out subtle, with slight anachronisms making the setting feel uncanny - for example, usually Neobeth is set in the early Meridellian period, but as this performance continued, a mish-mash of Neopian Worlds and eras began to clash in a way that felt awkward and ultimately, in this humble reviewer's opinion, fell flat. There is just something wrong about Neobeth in that iconic Act III, Scene I moment, plotting his dastardly deeds against Banquo the Blumaroo, but set in the Space Station of all places. Some may call me a purist and a snob for this opinion and I will accept those labels. Such are the burdens a theatre critic of my calibre must bear.

     Luckily, the misfortune and poor choices were limited to the quality of the show - no performers or designers were harmed during production. That I know of, anyway. Speaking of designers, I wondered if any of them were to blame for the visual and time-hopping blunders. I tried to grab a word with Juppie Juggins, a graduate of Neopia's Meri University School of Theatrical Arts, but was met with a curt response of "Listen, I don't want any responsibility for this. My role in this production was so insignificant that you need a magnifying glass to find it on the playbill. My job wasn't to make the overall style choices, it was just to make all the little things happen. Talk to Kassie Greenfield." So, my friends, it seems this has turned into an investigation. I've always fancied that I'd make a fantastic detective if I hadn't chosen this illustrious career as a critic. And so, onwards for some fact-finding.

     24th Day of Sleeping, Y23

     I sit with Kassie Greenfield and her wife, Mira, in a hole-in-the-wall Moonbucks shop across the river from Neopia Central. We're too far out to see any skyline, but the Rainbow Pool's rainbow gleams in the distance. My two interviewees were creative partners for years before falling for each other during a production. To my great surprise, the two are the first to admit that this show lacked any sort of cohesion. In the past, blending timelines and worlds has successfully led to an element of eeriness, atmosphericness and general unease. With this production of Neobeth, they wanted to see how far they could push the envelope.

     "Let's be real, reimaginings of that Neobeth are a neopoint-a-dozen. We've seen YooYoo Ball adaptations, we've seen The Three Witches as Lanie and Lillie, we've had Meridell replaced with a roller rink on Lutari Island. Nothing we were going to do was going to bring something new to the table. So we worked with the actors to figure out which twist they'd like to see on their characters and worked backwards from there."

     Over the next couple of hours they go back and forth with me about the early stages of the design process. Each performer, or in some cases groups of performers if their characters were linked, like the Witches, developed their own vision for their character. They met with everybody individually, to figure out the details. Leto McTurnip, who played Banquo, began collecting Usuki casually during his studies, but as he put more time into research of their history and hunting down rare dolls, he became something of an aficionado, so of course that's what he wanted to bring to the table. At first they thought that Leto McTurnip, who is a Quiggle, wanted to dress as an Usul, but as the discussion went on it was less the Usul, and more the concept of *play* and *toys*. The budget was far too low to invest in a Toy Paint Brush for just eight performances (four more the next two Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:00 at the tired, but still charming, Lightwater Theatre House) and that didn't leave an option for the same energy, anyway. This ended up working well with Neobeth, who posed as a marionette, representing how much the character was manipulated by the Lady and the Witches, and perhaps fate itself. But when standing next to Neoduff, a Steampunk Elephante, things began to fall apart, to say the very least. Still, next on our list was to speak with the head of costume design.

     27th Day of Sleeping, Y23

     I didn't have an opportunity to meet with Harry Shadowglen, head of costume design, who ignored all of my invitations - but I have done some background reading. He studied fashion history and sculpture at the Neopian Institute of Fine Arts, which leads to dynamic wearable art that has a strong interest in historical accuracy as a priority. He was apparently only involved in the very early stages of the design process, translating each actor's idea into a vision. Since then, he has been busy with obligations with an upcoming production of the ballet Lenny Lake. The sourcing, construction, and fittings were done by members of the Meridellian Players. The budget limited them in terms of how and where to source materials needed for the costumes and personal props, but they certainly got creative. Instead of making everything from scratch, many pieces started second-hand and were modified to suit the character. But this is where things started to fall short – take Leto, for example, I think we've all seen better costumes at the latest UsikiCon.

     27th Day of Sleeping, Y23

     Met up with set designer Verdante K. Verdante this afternoon. She is known for minimalist set designs, sometimes building sets that consist of just the frame to a circus tent for an adaptation of The Brucible or just an empty grid with the scenery being filled in by character props and the audience imagination in Waiting for Slothot. This performance involved a similar approach. The set pieces were large, but minimalist, with character props helping to enrich the world. This can work well when there's more focus on the story or the drama of the characters, but, in this critic's opinion, doesn't with a familiar story such as this, especially one that lacks a unifying factor in terms of costuming. Beyond that, there was a missed opportunity to play with anachronisms and subtle contrasts. It wasn't all bad – it worked beautifully for monologues and scenes with few characters – The Three Witches stole the show in that regard, with nearly no set at all except a giant cauldron and the witches, all Faerie pets, flit and flew above dropping their ingredients in. But in more crowded scenes, or settings that deserved more detail, the result was something of a visual mish-mash, leaving the audience unsure of what to focus on.

     28th Day of Sleeping, Y23

     My efforts to reach out to the lighting designers were unfruitful. Here is what I gleaned from speaking to various members of cast and crew. Like the set, they tried to reflect the characters on stage, and thus tried to use techniques that matched the era most associated with the different characters. This resulted in everything from a Scorchio who runs lights by breathing fire, to the latest technology out of Virtupets. The frequent changing and sometimes overlapping styles of light were interesting at the rare best of times, but disorienting and dizzying at worst. If watching the lights alone, it could have been mesmerizing, but as just a layer on top of a performance, it merely made for an unpleasant viewing experience.

     So how do we conclude. Far be it from me to gatekeep the creativity of Neopia's fantastic creative scene, but perhaps too much of a good thing is indeed too much. My interviews with cast and crew uncovered nothing but the best of intentions and the purest of artistic drives that, unfortunately, fueled a performance that was discombobulated at best, and an insult to the greatness of Neobeth at worst. In the end, I don't think anybody is to blame for the failure. They say things are more than the sum of its parts, but this goes to show sometimes, it can be less.

     Yours,

     Allegra Shadowvale