The Angel Intrudes

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q23goe8owUU

04/07/2020

A Virtual Play

Filmed at the Arts Theatre, Adelaide 

The Adelaide Repertory present their second ‘virtual’ play, a 14-minute comedy, The Angel Intrudes featuring 4 well-known amateur theatre actors, Lindsay Prodea, Patrick Marlin, Brittany Daw and Jamie Wright. 

Playwright Floyd James Dell was an American newspaper and magazine editor, literary critic, novelist, playwright, and poet. Dell has been called "one of the most flamboyant, versatile and influential American Men of Letters of the first third of the 20th Century."

The Angel Intrudes is one of a series of plays written by Dell that feature the angel as a reoccurring character. Written in 1917, it has been reset in the 1950s to make it more accessible. It is quirky to the point of being almost bizarre.

Set in New York, it concerns Jimmy Pendleton who plans to elope with his girlfriend Annabelle. Arrangements are made to meet at the train station and elope to South America.

All seems to be going to plan until Annabelle starts to have second thoughts. As Jimmy attempts to smooth things out, an angel appears and relationships, beliefs and emotions are challenged.

Director Ben Todd, talented character actor and director has chosen to present The Angel Intrudes as a play in the style of a movie rather than a filmed play. A wise decision as this enables a number of film devices – theme music (written by Todd himself), characters talking directly to the camera in closeups, cross fades and filming using angled shots to give the illusion of the characters being closer than the necessary social distancing to name a few.

These devices permit the camera to be the audience with differing ways of viewing the action rather than a ‘live audience’ in a theatre who have a static viewing position from their seats.

The quality of the technical aspects when filming on an almost blank stage has been refined since the Adelaide Repertory’s first virtual play (partially due to the director’s vision). The biggest improvement is the use of a boom mike rather than lapel mikes. The sound is clearer and eminently more controllable.

My only reservation is the difference of the acting style used by several of the actors. There are times when their delivery is ‘too big’ for the screen and creates an imbalance, but this is minor criticism.

The Angel Intrudes translates well from the stage to the screen and has whet this reviewer’s curiosity to read more of Floyd Dell’s work. Well done!

You can view this production using the link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q23goe8owUU

Reviewed by Barry Hill