Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 155.
A good review of a play.
You're listening to English as a Second Language podcast episode 155.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
Coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
On today's podcast, we're going to hear about two people going to a play at the theater.
Let's go.
I invited Bruce to a play at the Mark Taper Forum, and we got there a little early.
We handed our tickets to the woman at the door and found our seats.
I'm glad we got here early to find our seats.
I know that this is a sold-out performance.
The cast is supposed to be really good.
I read a rave review of the play in the paper last week.
The review said that the leads are perfectly cast and the directing is inspired.
Federica saw it a couple of weeks ago And she said that the staging and the costumes were really something to see.
I'm really glad.
The last time I came to a play at this theater it was a bomb.
The two lead actors weren't up to the parts, and the whole production was amateur.
It closed early, after only two weeks.
That won't happen with this play.
Hey, they're dimming the lights.
The curtain should be going up any minute.
In this podcast we go to or attend a play at a theater.
The story begins with megan saying that she invited bruce to a play at the mark taper forum.
The mark taper forum is a theater here in los angeles.
She says that they got there a little early.
They arrived there a little early.
We handed our tickets to the woman at the door, the story says, and found our seats To hand H-A-N-D.
Something is to give something to someone by putting it in their hand, from your hand to their hand.
You can hand a book, you can hand a piece of paper, you can hand any item that's small enough to hold.
They then found their seats, looked for and found their seats where they were sitting.
Megan said that she was glad they had arrived early.
She knew that this was a sold-out performance.
When we say it's a sold-out, S-O-L-D-O-U-T, two words, we mean there are no more tickets left.
Some people may also say it's a sellout, S-E-L-L-O-U-T.
That's the same as it has been sold out or it is sold out.
It's a sold out performance product.
And that word performance, P-E-R-F-O-R-M-A-N-C-E, is used for a play or any sort of usually a live performance. entertainment show it could be a dance it could be opera it could be singing and so forth in this case it's a theater play well bruce says that the cast of the play is supposed to be really good The cast, C-A-S-T, are the people who are in the play.
The actors and actresses are the cast, and that includes everyone who's on the stage in the play.
The stage, of course, S-T-A-G-E is where the play is performed, where the actors are in the theater.
A theater has a stage, and then it has seats.
Sometimes it has a balcony, B-A-L-C-O-N-Y.
That's like a second level higher up where people can sit.
Well, Bruce says that he read a rave review of the play in the paper last week.
A review.
R-E-V-I-E-W is when someone in the newspaper or on television gives their opinion of the play.
The people who write reviews are usually called critics, C-R-I-T-I-C-S.
A critic is someone who writes a review of a play or a movie and so forth.
Well, this was a rave review that Bruce read.
A rave R-A-V-E review means it was a great review that the reviewer or the critic was raving about the play.
To rave means to praise, to say very good things about a play, to be very excited, enthusiastic.
There's also a noun, rave, which is very different in a way.
A rave, as a noun is a dance, usually a dance that is in some location where you don't normally have dances, in the desert, for example.
And it's an all-night party where people dance throughout the evening.
I have never been to a rave before.
I guess I'm too old.
They became very popular in the 1990s in the United States.
People had rave parties.
But I was not part of that, I'm afraid.
The rave review was in the paper, and when we say it was in the paper, we mean it was in the newspaper.
People will often refer to a newspaper as simply the paper.
Did you read the paper this morning?
They mean, did you read the newspaper?
Probably your local newspaper.
Well, the review in the paper said that the leads were perfectly cast.
The leads, L-E-A-D-S, are the lead or most important actors and actresses.
Usually there's one or two, maybe three lead actors.
These are the ones that you see the most are most important for the story.
We will sometimes just call them the leads.
It's the same as the lead actors.
The actors were perfectly cast.
Well, we heard that cast, C-A-S-T as a noun, means people who are in the theater play.
But it can also be used as a verb, to cast.
And to cast means that we find people for the play to be in the cast.
So we might, for example, see that the director is casting the play.
That means he's looking for people to be in the play.
Usually they do this by holding auditions.
An audition, A-U-D-I-T-I-O-N is when you go to the director and you usually have to act for a few minutes in front of them and they can see whether you are good for their play.
You also can cast a movie. or a television show.
And here in Los Angeles, there are lots and lots of people who go to what are called casting calls.
And a casting call C-A-L-L is when they say well, if you want to be in this play, come to this theater on Monday morning at 8 o'clock.
And then you go and you go to an audition.
Well, getting back to our story, the leads were perfectly cast in this play, according to Bruce, meaning that the director found the right people for those particular parts.
And a part, P-A-R-T, in a play is the same thing as a role, R-O-L-E.
A part or a role is the person, the character in the story.
For example, in the play Hamlet by Shakespeare, one of the roles is Hamlet.
Another one of the roles is Hamlet's uncle, Polonius. and so forth.
So the different parts or different roles are the different characters in the story.
Bruce also says that the directing is inspired.
The directing is what the director does, and the director of a play is the person who tells the actors what to do.
He or she is the boss of the play, the person who is responsible for for putting the play on.
To put on a play means to perform a play.
Well, he's responsible for making sure all the actors do what they're supposed to do.
And when you say that the directing is inspired, you mean that it was very good that he had original new ideas.
Bruce also says that His friend Federica thought that the staging and the costumes were something to see.
The staging, S-T-A-G-I-N-G, is the way that the stage looks.
Remember, the stage is where the actors are.
And the staging... in part is what you see up on the stage and usually they'll be props p-r-o-p-s props are anything that the actors and actresses use in the play the costumes c-o-s-t-u-m-e-s are of course the clothes that the actors wear Bruce says that his friend told him the staging and costumes were really something to see.
When you say, well that's something to see, we mean it's really good.
It's something that you will want to see.
You could say that about a play.
You could also say that about a movie or even a sports game.
Boy, the Los Angeles Lakers are something to see, meaning they're a good basketball team and you'll enjoy them.
Megan says that she's very glad that the play is going to be good, because the last time she came to a play at the theater it was a bomb.
B-O-M-B.
That word bomb has many different meanings.
As an adjective in this sentence, It was a bomb with the indefinite article a or a, a bomb.
That means it was terrible.
It was not very good.
It was an awful, horrible play.
There's another way of using bomb as an adjective.
When we say something is the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, T-H-E, we mean it was great.
So it can be very confusing.
The expression the bond is very slang.
It's very popular among younger people.
So you won't see that in the newspaper.
When you see a bomb, you know that it was bad.
But if someone says it's the bomb or da bomb...
Sometimes we pronounce T-H-E.
Some people pronounce T-H-E informally as if it were D-A.
So instead of the bomb, they say da bomb.
But that's very informal, very slang use of that word.
A bomb as a noun, of course, is something that explodes, something that you will see in a war, for example, when they drop bombs from the planes.
But here, as an adjective, it means it was a bad play.
We often use that adjective about plays. not so much about other things.
We don't say the book was a bomb.
It's possible, but that would not be very common.
We would use this for a play in particular.
Well, Megan says that the two lead actors weren't up to their parts.
To be up to their parts and remember the part is the character that they are playing in the play.
To be up to something means that you are able to do it.
You have the ability, the capacity, the capability to do something.
You can use that for lots of different situations.
If you say, for example, my friend John isn't up to swimming three miles today means he's not ready, he's not able to do that, he's not prepared to do that.
Well, in this case, the lead actors were not up to their parts, were not good enough for their roles And the whole production, Megan said, was amateur.
The production, P-R-O-D-U-C-T-I-O-N, the production is the actual performance of the play.
It's what you go see.
Everything combined the music, the acting, the staging, the costumes, all of that is the production.
To say something was amateur A-M-A-T-E-U-R means that it wasn't very good.
It wasn't the opposite of amateur, which is professional.
A professional is normally someone who gets paid to do something.
An amateur is someone who does not get paid.
So, for example, in the United States, if you play college basketball, if you play basketball for your university, you are an amateur.
You are not paid.
But if you go and play for a professional team, then you become a professional and you are paid.
We also use these two words, professional and amateur, to describe how good something is done.
If someone says, that website is really amateur, they mean it's not very good.
It was done by someone who doesn't know what they are doing.
Megan says that this play that she saw that was terrible, closed early after only two weeks.
When we say a play closes, we mean that's the end of the performances at that theater.
The opposite would be to open.
So when is the play going to open?
When is the play going to close?
If a play is really bad, it may close early.
The theater may decide not to keep performing that play.
Bruce says that this play is not going to end early.
It's not going to close early, I should say.
He says, hey, they're dimming the lights.
The curtain should be going up any minute.
To dim, D-I-M, means to lower the light.
So if someone says we're going to dim the lights, they mean the lights are going to go from being very bright to less bright.
Usually, they turn the lights off completely.
But they do it slowly, and that's called dimming.
So they dim the lights...
The curtain will now go up.
The curtain, C-U-R-T-A-I-N, is what is at the front of the stage that hides everything behind it.
And then they open the curtain, or the curtain goes up, if it's an older theater, and the play then can begin.
Bruce says that the curtain should be going up any minute.
When someone says any minute, they mean at any time.
Very soon.
Could be 5 seconds, could be 25 seconds, but very, very soon.
Someone, for example, may say, I will be there any minute.
Means I'm driving there and I will arrive very, very soon.
Now let's listen to the dialogue at a native rate of speech.
I invited Bruce to a play at the Mark Taper Forum, and we got there a little early.
We handed our tickets to the woman at the door and found our seats.
I'm glad we got here early to find our seats.
I know that this is a sold-out performance.
The cast is supposed to be really good.
I read a rave review of the play in the paper last week.
The review said that the leads were perfectly cast and the directing was inspired.
Federica saw it a couple weeks ago and she said that the staging and costumes were really something to see.
I'm really glad.
The last time I came to a play at this theater, it was a bomb.
The two lead actors weren't up to their parts, and the whole production was amateur.
It closed early after only two weeks.
That won't happen with this play.
Hey, they're dimming the lights.
The curtain should be going up any minute.
The script for today's podcast was written by Dr. Lucy Say.
Remember to visit our website for the script of the dialogue and for more information about this podcast.
Our website is www.eslpod.com.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
We'll see you next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2006.
