Nov. 17, 2005

Two great ‘Crises’ take the stage

By JASON E. WEBER
weberj@marietta.edu
On one side there is one of the most influential black playwrights alive today. On the other side there is one of the most brilliant white playwrights of the twentieth century. Both sides will be sharing the Marietta College stage for four night as The Theatre Department presents, “Crises in Black and White.” Opening on November 30 at the Friedrich Theatre, the production will feature Imanu Amiri Baraka's “The Slave” and Tony-award winning playwright, Edward Albee's “Zoo Story.” These two plays mark the fourth production in this year's studio series used to enable young directors to gain the experience mounting long one-act and full-length play productions with a minimalist set and budget.

Nick Gehlfuss, a junior, is given the honor of directing Albee's “Zoo Story.” The play is the story of Peter, played by senior Brandon Donelson-Sims, an ordinary man who enjoys reading in the park and is, one day, interrupted by Jerry, played by another senior Ingraham, who simply must tell Peter a story about what he saw during his visit to the zoo. The ensuing conversation takes the audience through a roller coaster of emotion citing moments of both absurdity and absolute seriousness. The play is considered by many to be one of Albee's, the 2005 recipient of the Antoinette Perry Award for Lifetime Achievement, greatest pieces.

“At first when I read it,” Gehlfuss told the Marcolian, “I thought I had taken on too much. Albee is a brilliant writer. But now that we are in to rehearsals I am more confident and things are going much smoother. People will be talking about this play.”

The second half of the bill is another tremendous undertaking. Jeff Sherman, a senior theatre major, will be presenting his take on Imanu Amiri Baraka's play “The Slave.” Set in the 1960's during the heat of the civil rights movement, this masterpiece is about a black man named, Walker Vessels, played by junior Daniel May, Jr., who is trapped by his own life. He has lost everything he had fighting for a lost cause. During the course of the play he revisits his ex-wife, Grace, played by sophomore Samantha Spradlin, and her new husband Bradford Easley, played by senior Kevin Paskawych. The ensuing battle touches on issues of family, power, and race. Baraka skillfully crafts a play that leaves an audience on the edge of their seat for the entire show.
As part of the preparation process for their play, the cast of “The Slave” went to meet Baraka face to face and hear him speak at an event held on the Ohio University campus.

“I'm glad we got to see him,” said Samantha Spradlin, one of the actors in the production, “A lot of the dialogue didn't make sense until we heard him and realized that it was written how he talked. Then it all came into focus. Baraka is a very intelligent man and some of the references he made while speaking and reading his own work showed us that he is still very much interested in the issues that come up [in “The Slave]. It is amazing to see how much he could stuff into one play.”
The pair of plays is not your average evening of carefree theatre; it is an evening of intelligent dramas that pull at the very fabric of being human.

“We make contact with people everyday,” Gehlfuss said, “whether we mean to or not. Life isn't about the material; it's not about i-pods. It is about those connections we have with people everyday. We can relate to these characters in some sort of way.”

“Crises in Black and White” opens Wednesday, November 30, 2005 at 8:00 p.m. in the Friedrich theatre in the Hermann Fine Arts Center. Additional performances are on December 1, 3, and 4 also at 8:00 p.m. in the same location. Tickets are $6.00 for adults, $5.00 for senior citizens, $4.00 for students, and free to all Marietta College Students, Faculty, and Staff. The box office is now taking reservations at (740) 376-4678. Any questions or concerns can also be addressed there.