Mala’s comments on the audio described play
More Fine Girls (Audio-described)
Tarragon Theatre
March 23, 2011
The Play was about three sisters in their 50s who had their own issues with personal identity, relationships, health and middle age. It seems that the play was intended to be a comedy, but it was not a convincing production. I heard others laughing but I did not find the play funny myself. I did not enjoy this production of More Fine Girls.
The technology for the AD worked fine. There was no noise or static during the description. It was great to have the technology working well. However, the technology was set up to work only in one section (close to the back) of the theatre. The blind AD users could only sit in the designated area for the headsets to work. I wanted to sit closer to the front, but I was told that the headsets will not work close to the front of the theatre. This means as a low vision person, I was not able to see as well as if I had sat close to the front. I would have liked to have a choice of where I sit in the theatre.
The describer had a nice clear voice and did not whisper so it was easy to listen to her description. Her narration voice was very good; she enunciated clearly and provided a lot of detail e.g. miming, gesturers and the projections displayed on the screen. She had a consistent style of describing.
She described the program and introduced us to the characters and the set and costume before the play started. So we were able to understand the preface to the play. But the audience was still getting seated so this noise was distracting and I missed some of her description to the preface.
She used the conventional method to describe the play so we got the information to help us follow the sequence of the play. The three sisters names all begin with J and she kept using the wrong names of the women (Jane and Joejoe) several times during the description and would apologize for her mistake, which sometimes confused me.
From listening to the description, I could not tell that the play was a comedy.
Also, there were times in the play where there were loud noise e.g. explosion. The describer would try to explain what was happening but it was hard to hear her because the sound was too loud that it overpowered her description and made it difficult to understand both the description and the play..
All in all, the technology and the AD for More Fine Girls were much better than the previous play at the Factory theatre in November 2010. However, the play at the Factory theatre, Bethune Imagined, was very well-acted and a very good production unlike More Fine Girls.
I wondered if I had sat closer to the front, where I usually sit in theatres, if I would have enjoyed the play more.
