I’ve known about DramAcappella and their shows for the last few years, but until last night I hadn’t had a chance to see them in person. I was excited – they are always a Fringe crowd favorite, and as a girl who loves fun showtunes and theatre, I had high hopes for the performance. Before the show, however, I ran into a theatre friend familiar with this year’s piece who warned me not to set my expectations too high. So when the singing began, I was a bit apprehensive.
The performers, to their credit, really took pleasure in putting on a show and getting the audience involved. Their energy seemed to represent a lot of what the (Taipei) Fringe spirit is about: youthful, fun, inviting, open. Throughout the show, the entire cast displayed a strong ability to roll with the punches – they seemed to be capable of comfortably improvising any time it was needed (when a mic went out, or when someone flubbed a line, for example), and improvisation is a scary thing for even highly experienced dramatic performers.
Their infectious energy often made it easy to overlook the flaws in their performance while the show was happening. Two major flaws stick out for me now, as I look back. One is that many of the performers had difficulty accurately pronouncing the English lyrics to their songs. We’re in Taiwan, yes, and perhaps others in the audience wouldn’t or didn’t notice. But perhaps I’m more sensitive to it, being someone who has a long background in both cross-language theatre as well as musical theatre. For me it just sometimes became a distraction and pulled me out of the fun I was having. Notable exceptions to the poor pronunciation were the twins’ fun rendition of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and the director’s high-energy performance of “Totally Fucked”.
The other weakness I saw was an inconsistency with characterization. Some performers, like the twins or the grandma, maintained strong and clear characters throughout the show, including both when they were speaking and when they were singing. Some other performers didn’t succeed as well at staying in character throughout, and one or two even seemed to not fit very well the character that they had created.
All in all, while DramAcappella has room for improvement, they succeeded in creating a fun and interesting night for the audience, as displayed through the huge applause that greeted them at the end of their closing song. I look forward to seeing more of their shows in the future!
其它意見：Two things:
1. If you're going to do a show heavy with English-language songs in the future, it might help to have a pronunciation coach come in to give some advice. It will help with both clarity and stronger characterization.
2. I would have loved to have a printed list of the song titles and even the lyrics (translated into Chinese would have been amazing!). The songs provide a lot of emotion, and it would be wonderful for audience members who are unfamiliar with the songs to be able to create stronger connections to the pieces.
演出場地：A House