The Royal Family Play Analysis

The Royal Family, written by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, is a play about three generations of a wealthy family during the 1920s. I watched the play on December 6, 2015 at the Pierce College Arts Building. The play was directed Anita Adcock, who did great job setting the play as she intended it to be. Everything from the costumes, the lighting, to the typecasting was excellently produced. Particularly, the set design was able to greatly express the theme of the play. The setting mainly takes place in the family’s home. The play included the familiarity of Kaufman and Ferber’s and kept majority of the original play’s components. My experience watching Adcock’s take of The Royal Family was entertaining, humorous, and enjoyable. The storyline is about the life of the Cavendishes, who have a long-line of generations involved with theatre in New York City. Fanny Cavendish, played by Melissa Virgo is the grandmother of the family and fully embraces the family’s acting tradition. Tamarah Ashton, who plays has Fanny’s daughter Julie, is a also an actress trying to juggle her career, family issues, along with her love for Gilbert Marshall, played by James Svako. Gwen, played by Elyse Hamilton, is the daughter of Julie and is also making decisions between her occupation and her love life. The three …show more content…
I also really enjoyed the characters’ emotions and the producer’s typecasting. On the set, the furniture and decorations accurately corresponded to the setting of the play. The lighting designer, Michael Gend, did a superb job of keeping the appropriate amount of light during specific parts of the performance. As for the costumes, the costume designer, Eileen Gizienski, properly depicted the apparel for a wealthy family during the 1920s. The acting was a inferior attempt to keep the crowd immersed. Typecasting for the play correctly illustrated each actor’s role in relation to their