University of Denver - Kynewisbok Yearbook (Denver, CO)

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 ness ■Njwressivei choreograph created a sense Knuckle, like most Bri suffered in the transition to the (Can culture. Mui h '-.ire asm was iosi to the audience. Another difficulty arose from the length of the scenes. The director admitted that many scenes should have been shortened. However, the lengthy final scene was carried effectively by Gary Carnes. Despite its shortcomings, Albert-son was pleased with the overall performance of the play. Focused on a broken society in a satirical manner, Knuckle touched not just the audience's humor, but also their moral prop f I nq ence disrd Some actors fe - ■■ memorizing of lines, vet Miser had few shortcomings' It was overall a fun play, marked Stacy Carson, ... ant had a good cast. — M.L. Holow ■ tunics, but in modern clothing. Once on stage, the actors donned their costumes and assumed the persona of their character. Ninety percent of the transition from actor to character happened on stage, remarked Stacy Carson. We were ourselves when we walked out, but once we were in costume, we became that character. Another interesting aspect of Geer's production of The Miser was that members of the audience sat on stage, much as they had during Moiiere's time. With this, the director attempted to promote a kind of actor audience relationship. When you break the barrier between the audience and the performer, explained Tom K. Jones, you increase the audience's response and improve your own performance because neither has to be formal. Jones played Master-Jacques, the servant of Much of the success of the audi-ence actor relationship was due to earlier improvisation in rehearsal. For several weeks, the cast rehearsed the scenes impromptu, not using the actual text. This improvisation helped to put the script into the actor’s terms and therefore use their own creative talents. When they did rehearse with the script, the actors allow ed some of the improvisation to filter in. The improvisation also pre- a member of thoaudi-“ L. % not enough conscience. The Miser by Moliere was the second major production of the DU theater. This seventeenth century comedy, directed by guest director Richard Geer, takes place in Italy. It is the story of the miser, Harpagon (Stacey Carson), and Cleante (Michael McClinton), his son, both who want to marry Mariane (Lisa Mumpton). At the same time, Harpa-gon'sdaughter, Elise (Margaret Powers), wishes to marry Valcre (Jon Meyers), 'and not Valere's father, Anselme (Michael Tatlock), whom Harpagon wants her to marrv. The problems are only compounded by Harpagon's obsession with money and the attainment of more. The Miser is essentially a fun play satirizes vanity and materialism. Although Sarah Delafield does not appear. Knuckle featured a huge screen with slides of Sarah. This medium was chosen to create a visual basis for the audience's imagination and to add emotional impact. However, in no way were the slides intended to provide a clue to the mystery surrounding Sarah. The screen was intended to create a sense of alienation between the characters and the audience as the audience had to sit back to view the slides yet focus on each scene. Admittedly, the character audience estrangement was more than the director desired, yet, she was pleased with the overall effect. Knuckle is an aggressive play with little room for the audience's reaction. It proved to be fast and furious which sometimes overwhelmed the audience. The aggression escalated to a myriad of forms, from outright shouting to subtle body language. Even the costumes, some in loud col-added to the overall aggressive-yhe characters' personalities, ss was even seen in the the dancers

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Spring Theatre Produces Unique Audience Actor Relationships If U's theater company produced If two successful plays this spring. Both Knuckle, a British play, and The Miser, a French play were handled equally well. The first production. Knuckle, was written by the English playwright David Haro and directed by DU professor Sarah Albertson. Knuckle provides a biting satirical look at today's society and its values. It is the story of an eightcen-ycar-old missing girl, Sarah Delafield (Heidi Olson), and of her brother's attempts to reconstruct the events leading to her disappearance. Sarah's brother, the gun-running Curly Delafield (Gary Carnes), returns to his father's estate after hearing of her disappearance. In his investigation. Curly exposes society's hypocracy at its worst, filled with extortion, corruption and greed. Throughout the play, Sarah's murder or suicide is suggested (as Sarah never appears on stage) but. in the end, her friend, jenny Wilbur (Kim Dorr), receives a letter from Sarah who is in France. The director. Professor Albertson, chose Knuckle liecause she felt that it spoke to today's society as the story of a disillusioned teenager confronted by the compromises of her father. Sarah becomes the emlxxli-ment of moral value ... a 'most admirable' heroine who never appears on stage, said Allx'rtson. David Hare s Knuckle, April 21-24. 27-30 Photos courtesy of DU Publicity.

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Photo S 1 MADE FUN ynchronize your watches ... on your mark, get set, go. And we're off to another astronomy class. Dr. Everhart in charge. Astronomy, a course which will fill a natural science requirement is much more than a class you have to take. By the end of the quarter you will have learned everything you want to know (or didn't want to know) about synodic and sidereal periods, locating stars and planets in the sky, the discovery of comets and the various types of telescopes in the world. Professor Everhart is the stereotypical scientist. He's short, and m JS .1 T 3 hut jolly looking. He has wild, white hair that is ] X I t 1 7 f balding on top and bushy sideburns. He always seems like he's YV i. l tl. ± Up to something and has a mischievous glint in his eye, almost like a five-year-old. He is curious, enthusiastic and energetic about astronomy and life. It is rare to see such qualities in a professor. In a typical class we discussed double stars and were challenged with the question of directions as they appear in the sky. After a few minutes of argument with the class. Dr. Everhart teasingly said, Well, 1 guess I'll just find out on the test. Everhart's mischievousness and energy is revealed through his many analogies for demonstrations of astronomical occurrences. Today we were learning about the orbits of double stars when Everhart whipped out a drawer from a lab table, dumped the contents noisily onto the floor and displayed a diagram which was drawn on the bottom of the drawer. The diagram was of an eclipse: the path that a star follows around its companion star. A distance scale drawing of planets' places in the universe caused Everhart to illustrate Uranus to scale chalked in on the classroom door. Another analogy Everhart makes is this: imagine a giant bowl of oatmeal. What would you get if you dropped a bowling ball into it? Something similar to a central peak of a crater which is caused by a meteorid hitting the moon's surface. Everhart's antics make astronomy an amusing as well as a true learning experience. — Theresa Frank