Pittsburg State University - Kanza Yearbook (Pittsburg, KS)

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Entertainment A concentration in courageousness Facing the lights Most people are aware that plays involve a lot of sweat. There are months of rehearsal, work to be done on the set and costumes and the heat of the lights on top of that. Most people probably are not aware however, that some plays require a sweat of a different kind: research. The speech and theater depart- ment’s fall production of The Cherry Orchard ’ written before 1905 by Anton Chekhov, required just that kind of sweat. Dr. Cary Clasz, professor of theater, directed the play and initiated the research efforts. 'It’s the kind of thing we do every once in a while as a part of our educational services when there are classes in theater that can use them as a project, she said. She began researching at the beginning of the summer of 1981 and had her advanced directing class help her in the fall. “This is suitable for upper division classes when you are trying to work on the research problems in the particular disciplines. We try to do it every second or third year if we can. If we do it in the spring it is related to the acting classes ’ Dr. Clasz said. We put in a lot of work on The Cherry Orchard said Frank Kuhel, Heppler senior and theater and ad- vanced directing student. Dr. Clasz put in a tremendous amount of work, and even rewrote some of the dialogue for which we could not find a translation that would mean anything to an American audience. Dr. Clasz said that there were three areas of research related to the production of a play. First, you research the playwright, THE BURGER PALACE boys of the popular 50's musical “Grease1' were well portrayed by Tony Munoz, Todd Yearton, Kevin Mahoney, Claude Cummings and Bryon Sommerfield in this street scene from PSU's summer production, —photo by Bill Holtom what he wrote and what he had to say about what he had wrote. “Second, research is done on the context of the play. It is one thing to look at a play, and quite another to look at the people and culture of the time. For example, Shakespeare wrote about Anthony and Cleopatra, but it is another thing to look at Anthony and Cleopatra themselves. “Third, production history is researched. You try to look at as AS SANDY, the heroine of the musical Grease,” Pam Handshy performs one of her touching solos, —photo by Bill Holtom Theater

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Entertainment Concentration many of the productions of the play as possible,” said Dr. Clasz. She said “The Cherry Orchard” presented additional problems because it was written in Russian so that translations had to be checked for their accuracy. The two problems facing the production of a play after doing the research are interpretation and translation. We had to translate ideas in the play in terms of the particular audience and placing. What we do with a PSU production in Pittsburg, Kan., with students and townfolk attending, would be done differently if the play were to be presented on Broadway,” she said. Names and sentence structure were changed in the play. On the basis of the research fin- dings, we decided the best thing to do was to write a new American version. We would like our own audience to find it as clear as the playwright’s original audiences found it.” Interpretation refers to the way the play is emphasized. The original playwright said that it was a comedy bordering on a farce. The first production interpreted it as a serious drama. It didn’t make the audience laugh at all. The playwright did not like that. They also changed the script and added some things. Part of what we did in rewriting it was to go back to the original script and take the point of view that it was a comedy bor- dering on a farce,” said Dr. Clasz. Kuhel said that a stationmaster was converted into a county commisioner because “we wanted to convey the impression that he was a low-level public official.” Clasz said that the setting was also changed a little. The original play was written in four acts and most of our modern plays are in two or three acts. The last act was changed to a scene shift. The three interior scenes we had all in the same room instead of different rooms,” said Dr. Clasz. The original play called for scene shifts from the old nursery” to the ballroom. The set for the PSU version THE GALL-BLADDER OPERATION was one musicum concert presented at Pittsburg State University. Patricia Flagler and Barbara VanDriel give a helping hand to Lisa Wade. — photo by Janet Dulohery was set up so that the doors in the back of the nursery opened into the ballroom so that those scene shifts would not have to be made. The play is about a variety of dif- ferent kinds of people during a time of change,” said Dr. Clasz. Russia is approaching the revolution and social changes are undermining the role of the old aristocracy. The family that lives in the house belong to the old aristocracy. The serfs were all released 40 years earlier and they haven’t even adjusted to that change yet. The family is inflexible. The estate is no longer making money and they just sit around and watch themselves lose it,” said Dr. Clasz. A son of one of their previous serfs is flexible. He has become a businessman and is making money. He eventually buys the estate. “He is inflexible in that he still believes the aristocracy are better than his old social class. He is very embarassed about buying it simply because they are aristocracy and he is not.” Making an early 20th century Russian play understandable and funny to a late 20th century American audience is no easy task. Perhaps that is why projects like this are taken on only every two or three years at PSU. —by Chris Bohling LOOKS OF DISBELIEF are obvious as Patricia Flagler and Barbara VanDriel ignore Lisa Wade in the Collegium Musicum Concert presented on Nov. 18, 1981 „ —photo by Janet Dulohery Theater