Wednesday, October 17th, 2012 James Baldassano

In today’s seminar class, we had another one of our privileged opportunities to see a professional production in the city. Instead of an opera, however, this time we got to see a broadway productions of “The Heiress”, which is basically a version of “Washington Square”.

The actual production was very interesting. Being that I have attended many broadway shows, I knew what to expect, and that was excellence. I liked the way that they portrayed the characters with exaggerated characteristics, such as the dullness of Catherine Sloper, or the romantic side of Aunt Penniman, or perhaps even the bluntness of Austin when speaking of Catherine. Another factor that I enjoyed was the comedy thrown into the play. It wasn’t enough comedy to take over the story line and say that the plot was meant to be funny, but it was enough silly little jokes, and side gags to leave the audience satisfied.

What really got my attention was the twist ending, which differed from the book. When Catherine led on Morris after he returned, only to return the favor to him, it was a much more satisfying ending, with a case of poetic justice. Morris got was was coming to him rather than as in the book, in which case Catherine is no more than a hollow shell that does nothing other than deny Morris. This ending was more emotionally satisfying to me.

All in all, I much prefer to see the Broadway production, or any live production, than read the book, for reasons other than laziness. They allow me to visualize what is happening and how things are meant to look, and usually it is easy to infer what is going on in a characters mind based on his/her movements or actions.