The first School of Theatre production, “Woe is Me,” opens this weekend.
“Woe is Me” by Euripides, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Racine and Aeschylus, will open Sept. 18-19 with no in-person audience. The show is co-directed by Lance Marsh, professor of acting and head of the School of Theatre, and Hal Kohlman, adjunct professor of theatre and performance.
The production consists of 34 monologues performed over the course of two acts by 34 different actors. Kohlman said the play is broken into five distinct sections which tell a complete thematic story, and Kohlman and Marsh will each direct a different act.
“The first section are all monologues from a play called ‘Trojan Women,’ which was a play that we were going to do last year, and then COVID hit. So, we were unable to do the whole play,” Kohlman said. “And then we move into some monologues from Shakespeare.”
Kohlman said he is leading the second act, which includes sections of Greek plays, more Shakespeare plays, and a couple French Neoclassical monologues.
Kohlman said the entire production is being performed as a series of monologues so the actors can remain socially distant.
“The actors will wear their masks off-stage and then remove their masks when they enter. They will perform with 10 feet of distance, and when they exit, they will put their masks immediately back on,” Kohlman said. “We’ve staged it in such a way that, generally speaking, if a scene takes place on the left side of the stage, the next monologue will take place on the right side of the stage to allow the particles to fall to the floor.”
Lauren Madsen, theatre design and production junior, is the head stage manager of “Woe is Me.” She said a part of her job as stage manager is maintaining a safe rehearsal space under extreme conditions.
“Because this show doesn’t really have a lot of dialogue between actors, we’ll typically only have two to six actors in a room at a time,” Madsen said. “We have to be very conscious of where everybody’s sitting and that everybody’s sanitizing their hands and where they sit at the end of the night and throughout the night. It’s just being more conscious of things you wouldn’t even think about last semester.”
Madsen said there are two assistant stage managers, one who follows Marsh and one who follows Kohlman through the rehearsal process. As head stage manager, Madsen said she stays in the Burg Theatre where she manages the overall production.
“Jeff Cochran likes to say that we’re not supposed to be the COVID police, but we are trying to maintain that everyone’s staying safe and cautious,” Madsen said.
Kohlman said one of the challenges of a streamed production is the lack of communication between the audience and the actors.
“Theater is all about communication, and usually communication between people. So, when you have monologues addressed to the audience, there is no communication there. The actors are having to imagine that they’re communicating with the audience,” Kohlman said. “We have a number of times where we have placed a silent actor on-stage if a monologue is directed towards another character.”
Kaylila Pasha, acting senior, is playing “Andromache 2.” She said one of the challenges is performing within the style of the production while wearing a face covering.
“It’s an artform that requires a lot of liveliness, especially in your face and in your jaw. One of the struggles that we’re working through as an actor is to remain focused while also dealing with barriers,” Pasha said. “It’s a really good exercise in working through distractions.”
Cecily Lavery, acting senior, is playing Capulet. She said the format of “Woe is Me” has made memorization easier.
“It’s honestly a lot better for memorization because it’s just one massive monologue, and I don’t have to worry about anything else,” Lavery said. “But it also means that there’s a lot more pressure on the individual to really bring something unique and interesting that showcases what we’ve learned here.”
“Woe is Me” will perform at 8 p.m. Sept. 18-19. Students can watch the livestream via the Oklahoma City University Music streaming portal.
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