In The News:
Press Releases and News Stories concerning the Robinson Players
Lewiston Sun Journal Press Release,
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"There's still a lot of playful fantasy, but I'm focused on characterization and dramatic development. It's a play about a young girl moving toward maturity through what she sees as a family crisis - the marriage of her older sister," he explained. "She wants to prevent this and, with the reluctant help of her little brother, cooks up a scheme to sabotage the wedding. Her encounter with Nutcracker and the Mouse King helps her to realize the shabbiness of her plot, and points her in a new direction." Andrucki describes the original Hoffman text as "a wonderful piece of writing, with vivid characters, very weird psychological twists and turns, and a great sense of the power of the imagination." "The challenge in directing the staged reading has been stripping down the production," Schloss said. "In a text where characters can morph from toys to human-size heroes, enter the stage through a magical clock and play the parts of both humans and royal mice, it's difficult to picture staging the story with just stools and music stands on a bare stage." With none of the technical demands of a full-scale production to deal with, the staged-reading format gives her the opportunity to focus on the characters and relationships behind the spectacle, Schloss said. The staged reading will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 15, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 16, in the Black Box Theater, Pettigrew Hall, 305 College St. For more information, call 207-786-8294. |
Bates Office of College Relations Press Release, Tuesday, May 6th, 2002: "King Lear"
The Bates College student theater group performs the Maine radio premiere of Shakespeare's "King Lear" in a broadcast from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday, May 11, on the college radio station, WRBC 91.5 FM.
Recorded in March by a cast of Bates faculty and students, the Robinson Players' "Lear" was directed by Matteo A. Pangallo, a junior from Salem, MA. Key players include Sanford Freedman, professor of English, as Lear; first-year student Matt Heffernan, of Cranston, RI, as the Earl of Kent; sophomores Nathan Holt, of Plainfield, NJ, as the Earl of Gloucester and Jamal Smith, of Corona, CA, as Edgar; seniors Colin Simmons, of Litchfield, CT, as Edmund and Sarah Wilson, of Mediapolis, Iowa, in the role of Cordelia. Pangallo has aspired to produce "Lear" for radio since last year. He attributes the idea to a "Lear" recording by the Renaissance Shakespeare Company, with an all-star British cast including Dame Judi Dench, Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson. Pangallo believes that a sound-only version of this drama set in pre-Christian Britain will "force the audience to listen and imagine the world of the play." |
The play follows events leading up to the legendary king's tragic demise. When the action begins, Lear has decided to retire as King of England. He would like to divide his land among his three daughters, Regan, Goneril and Cordelia, but must first decide which will get the best land. He holds a contest to determine which daughter loves him the most, with an outcome more costly than he could ever have imagined. A subplot involves the Earl of Gloucester, who like Lear makes a costly decision regarding the loyalty of his sons, the bastard Edmund and the legitimate son Edgar. This is the first theatrical piece for radio the Robinson Players have produced in their 80-year history. The company recorded the performance in Schaeffer Theater at Bates and did post-production editing and mixing in the WRBC production studio. "Our decision not to broadcast live," Pangallo says, "will enable us to edit in music for atmospheric and scene-change purposes, as well as sound effects, such as sword fights and thunderstorms." The play airs only on WRBC, whose signal extends about 15 miles from the Bates campus. More information about the production is available at the production's website, www.learonline.net. |
The Bates Student,
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The greatest element to consider in this year's production of Shakespeare on the Puddle is the location for "Macbeth". Although Mount David may at first appear an outlandish place to perform one of Shakespeare's finest, Arata stated that this new stage is geologically reminiscent of Macbeth's highland setting: "It's Scotland, up at the top, it's brilliant with the rocks and moss and sticks. It's both beautiful, yet a wasteland - a barren plain of nothing." The Mount itself creates the crucial atmostphere for Macbeth, especially because the final scene of the play will be at dusk, the time when Shakespeare himself would have had it performed in his original productions. Stoddard attributed the location to the "excitement about the production." He said he believes "the location is just so perfect for 'Macbeth' because it's so open and because we're using so much of it - there's action going on around the entire audience. The environment lends its own element to the play, because we have to project so loudly there's an element of urgency in the reverberation off of the rock." But, with such a different and challenging location for a production, Arata noted that "it's going to be really eerie, scary, and bloody," creating the perfect atmosphere of "evil" for the play, what Stoddard calls "'Macbeth' as an action movie." Stoddard explained that this production "pushes the limits of what one can do with the environment of the theater, and what people can do with the area around. As opposed to being enclosed by four walls, to interact with the environment, the stuff is actually there, the environment is the set." Clearly, this adventurous production is going to be very different than any previous Shakespeare on the Puddle. As Arata claimed, "'Macbeth' will be like a haunted hay-ride of sorts," as well as "the first successful show to be put on Mount David." "Macbeth will run from May 19-21, with rain dates. So lace up the hiking boots, bring blankets, sunglasses and baseball caps, and enjoy the show. |
