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April 18, 2024 | Events, General, Theatre, What Did You Think?,
What did you think about Book of Mountains and Seas?
Join the conversation and let us know what you thought about Book of Mountains and Seas! Comment below, either by following one of the prompts below or with whatever crosses your mind. We can’t wait to hear from you!
1. What myths did you hear growing up that shaped your worldview?
2. What is the “sun” you are chasing in your life?
3. In what ways do you respect nature?
4. What do our respective cultural origin myths say about us now?
Feel free to leave a comment on this blog post, or reach out on Facebook or Instagram; be sure to tag @ArtsEmerson too! Be sure to check back here for more reviews from press and other audience members.
My friend and I attended Book of Mountain and Seas last night and left very disappointed. We attended, in part, due to the reputation of Basil Twist but were sorely disappointed by the what we felt were amateurish staging as well as unimaginative marionette work. While the danish chorus was professional and their voices beautiful, we found ourselves bored and annoyed by the repetitive nature of the compositions and, in truth, would have walked out of the performance except we did not want to disturb our fellow audience members. Compared to the marionette work at Moby Dick, earlier in the season, we found this far below those standards. The 10 suns section of the piece was tedious, unimaginative and silly. There were far too many manipulators on stage as well as chorus members that was both distracting and unnecessary. Overall, we found the production amateurish and, frankly, tedious. We had high hopes for this production but our patience was sorely tested and ultimately we were very disappointed. You win some – you lose some.
Maybe we’re too dense and uncultured not to appreciate subtlety, but we found it unbearably slow and inscrutable.
PRBC discussions and overture reading, pre-show talk with Director and puppeteer Basil Twist were way more interesting than the play itself. Some findings/stage design (silk river/ocean, bird, lanterns, chorus) were very unexpected and interesting, yet, unfortunately, didn’t become a Story. I felt very disappointed and trapped in my seat (orchestra left D7). Perhaps, the stage itself was too small for such a large cast -occasionally, action at the center stage was obstructed by the chorus for viewers in the seats on the left and right of the aisles…
I left other comments via the survey link but forgot to mention that it wasn’t easy to keep up with the English subtitles, I’d be looking elsewhere and suddenly realize that there were new words to read. I’d feel that surely I had missed something. I’ve read the 4 comments above and I basically agree with them. It was slow. When the drums started beating, that’s when I felt like things were looking up and basically salvaged the performance. I went with an educated Chinese friend, she recognized the 1st 2 fables.