As promised, pictures of Medea.
The training was intense.
Antony, our director, spoke at length on numerous misty-woo-woo subjects.
But enough about rehearsal.
The pre-show was a series of silent shadow tableaux illustrating Jason and Medea's story up to the point where the play begins.
When the lights rose again the words of the chorus flooded forth. The backdrop had a large red spot on it which people enjoyed interpreting.
Medea spoke, moved, breathed and dressed with miscarriage-causing intensity.
My roommate Clayton was Creon.
My part (Jason) was perfectly constructed for showing off-- I had a quick appearance in the beginning, a good long time in the middle and a sort of finishing monologue after Medea kills the children, by which point Katie must have been quite exhausted. I got to do a lot of cool movement, too, which helped me to finally deliver the text; at the end I could have done it in stillness, but I'm glad to have had the movement to move me there. Medea and I even had a whole silent scene-- Antony told Katie and me to go through the blocking of our scene together without saying the lines, just for the sake of reviewing it, then decided to put the silent blocking to music and have it in the show. It was intense.
Yes, we did have more intense lighting sometimes; I just really like that dark picture.
"Flee with me, innocent." "Who will oppose if double war ensue and the two kings join forces?" Intense tattoos.
We had a wheelchair, which Medea and the nurse used in all manner of creative ways.
The chorus was a near-constant background presence.
The shadows made another appearance later as the nurse.
For the finale, three of the four principal characters are on the floor while the chorus rises. But where is the fourth?
Dead.
The curtain call threw people off a bit.
We had a cast/crew/department party. Four people named Andrew attended.
It was a toga party. The cast and crew took pictures together.
And now it is over.
I forgot what "intense" means.
There were several lines in the play where I always expected to hear (or say) something other than the original text. Like when Ty said, totally by accident, "naked to every eyeball else" instead of "invisible to every eyeball else" in The Tempest . . . they never quite leave your memory.
"How he who takes the scepter in proud hand deems his own will sufficient" --> "How he who takes the scepter in proud foot . . ."
"This brute of a woman escapes" --> "This heinous bitch escapes"
"God gives us remedies worse than our ills" --> "Cats give us remedies worse than our ills"
"Creon himself, swelling with Grecian pride" --> "Creon himself, oozing with Grecian pride"
"Sound the gay music of the marriage song" --> "Sound the gay marriage of the music song"
There are more photos on Facebook (my Medea album) for those who have access.