Las not-so-fantastic aventuras de la capitana Gaspacho

After a long lasting streak of really bad plays, Robbie had told us we would go to see "Las fantasticasm (or tremendas, not quite sure) aventuras de la Capitana Gaspacho" in hopes of actually enjoying it.
In true friday night play fashion, the play was a complete, almost painful disaster.

Although it did possess a very interesting concept and premise, a captain and her one man crew embark on a journey, there was a slightly entertaining sequence where the captain asked for different things on the ship be fixed/prepared and only one man did them.
The scenery for the first scene was good, instead of having your typical ship, you had a wooden platform with unconventional elements representing other objects from the ship (eg. A wheel was the stiring wheel, a toilet was a seat or throne, a teddy bear was a star.)

I also liked the fact that there were three different scenes going on and that they eventually bled into each other (this is one of the few liver driven comments i will do, sorry robbie.) it was a la-it's all business.

The other scene was about two sisters, one talking about how a man had stolen her 5 o'clock, therefore tea time, and she would now go on to take tea at five always, she was now british.
The other sister wasn't actually listening, she responded according to a "movie" she was watching (another interesting element, the movie was the first scene), this had potential but the actress was not very good, there wasn't the necessary umph behind her lines, i think she was just blurting them out in a trying-to-be-sweet way, without actual intention.
The first sister, the one that wouldn't shut up about the tea, she was good i thought, but again, the extra punch several of her lines required (eg. when calling her sister a whore) was lacking for me, monotonizing her character a little bit, thus making her boring.
The scenery of this scene was pretty, interesting yet, it was just a pretty set of table, chairs and clock, there was no creative process present which, let's be honest for the simple pedestrian man with no studies on theatre, is absolute non sense because pretty furniture will forever be pretty furniture, but for us, IB theatre students it is very important, vital even to have a concept behind a play, this will help with absolutely every aspect of a play.

The third and last of the little scenarios was a simple table with chairs and table cloth (no creative concept again.) it was a housewife who cried over a bird, sh wouldn't cut onions nor chicken because she thought "if i cut onions and cry, what would happen if i cut chicken." , her abusive husband beats her.
The woman was not a very good actress, she did not know how to deliver her lines and the infamous and extremely painful, boring and overused "Alguien tiene un fosforo?" at the end was by far one of the worst jokes of the play.
When the husband chased her around the table, it wasn't believable enough, believable in the sense that the audience knew the effort put into it, and although i do think there was effort, i don't think that part of the scene, and other chases similar to it, were completely squeezed out of their whole comedic potential.

The oral sex scene was very funny, yes, but it was such a Risas Y Salsas kind of thing, and having her sitting on the table was not a very good idea, because of the whole When Harry met Sally (ijij) fake orgasm scene with Meg Ryan, i mean, for the actors to take such a defining scene that had strong cultural impact and try to emulate that (aware of it or not) they had to have amazing results for it to stand out, yes it got a few laughs but i think it was mainly because of the situation rather than the execution of it.

Another major problem for me was the lighting, it was too yellow and created so many shadows in so many wrong places, at times the actors faces were completely darkened and it was impossible for me to see their facial expressions, and since, let's face it, they weren't good enough at the actual delivery of the lines, i was also completely oblivious of the character's feelings.

In the end all the scenes mix with each other, the characters eventually meet and chaos ensues. The court scene i thought was well executed in a technical sense, the acting was not quite there yet, except for, who i thought to be the standout of the play, Jorge (not his real name.) However, his character started on an energy level of 10 (out of 10) with lines and actions to match, so there was no space for the character to grow in intensity and overall impact. He almost flatlined in a high level throughout the whole play.

Las tremendas aventuras of la capitana Gaspacho, yet another example of a terrific script that combines good old fashioned verse with contemporary elements and potentially incredibly hilarious situations and characters, executed poorly or perhaps, rehearsed fantastically but in the final performance the energy went down the drain. Or maybe they were just bad.

Directing is key, i am not sure and quite certain i never will be, wether this play and its actors were pushed hard enough for it to be great during rehearsals by the director and in the end nerves got the best of them, or if the lack of creative concept was product of lackluster directing.

So, in terms of directing, if he/she works extremely hard enough with positive response and results from the actors, why is it that when it comes to the actual performance, all that process vanishes and what can the director do about it?