Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Digg
Tell us what you think!Send a letter to the editor about this or any other article in The Maine Campus.
People packed into the Pavilion Theatre for Friday night’s premiere of the Upperdog Showcase, five one-act plays directed by University of Maine students. The plays, “The Frog Prince,” “A Modest Proposal,” “The Hawk’s Well,” “Oedi” and “Krapp’s Last Tape,” covered an array of thematic topics ranging from ridiculous humor to deadly seriousness.
The first play, “The Frog Prince,” began with an ostentatious prince seeking flowers for his beloved. In a predictable change of events, the prince, played by Joshua Davis, turns into a frog, sending his life into despair.
While the prince eventually regained his original form, the play, deviating from the children’s tale, concluded with an underlying mood of ambivalence. Emily Duncan, the student director of the play, was intrigued for this reason, stating, “In a world where so many children’s plays are mindless fluff, it was exciting to find one so brilliantly written and one which forces the audience to draw its own conclusions.”
“A Modest Proposal,” a controversial satire originally written by Jonathon Swift, was uniquely adapted onto the stage by student director Joe Mitchell. With the use of strobe lights, Mitchell stunningly recreated the act of baby decapitation found in the original. Powerful red lights were cast on the characters’ faces as they brought the harsh words of Swift into an intense reality.
The third play, “The Hawk’s Well,” directed by UMaine graduate student Angela Khorll, reinterpreted William Butler Yeats’ play into a contemporary piano-bar-casino-lounge setting. What was formerly a blazing pile of twigs on a mountainside interestingly became a burning cigar at a gambling table. Through various interpretive twists, Khorll was able to maintain the original essence of Yeats while adding a quite relatable element of modernity.
“Oedi,” the fourth play of the evening, hilariously lampooned the original story of “Oedipus” by Sophocles. Oedipus, played by Nathan Rumney, discovered his ghastly past of murdering his father and marrying his mother. After contemplating gouging out his eyes and castrating himself, Oedipus finally decided to blame the gods for his incest to live happily ever after with his wife-mother.
The final play, “Krapp’s Last Tape,” centered around the lonely retirement of a dreary old man played by Allen Adams. He thumbed over the audio recordings of his youth and was flooded with emotions, ultimately filled with a sense of futility. As Tom Sagona, student director, commented on the universality of the play, “It is a journey of discovery that everyone can relate to in their own way.”
The Upperdog Showcase was insightful and entertaining, a glimpse into what students are producing and what they want to communicate.
