The Rover: Actors bear it all

Rock and roll singer Ian Dury was right when he said there is more to life than sex, drugs and rock and roll in his famous song under the same title – there is sword fighting too.

The GCSU Theater Program hosted “The Rover” last week in Russell Auditorium.

The director of the play, Karen Berman, wanted to show GCSU that this play was still necessary in this day and age.

“I wanted to make this (play) relevant to students at GCSU,” Berman said. “I found a lot of connections in 1960s to the 1660s.”

These connections include a women’s revolution, similar to one that took place in the 1960s and the four British characters’ invasion of Italy being reminiscent of the Beatles taking over a generation.

The costumes at first glance appear to be something straight out of the 17th century with the puffy shirts, a scimitar holstered to the hip and the long, elegant dresses, but when one of the characters makes his first appearance donning a pair of ’60s green shades with a peace sign hanging from his neck, the intertwining of eras becomes evident.

The actress who played Hellena, Caleigh Allen, exemplified the importance of the play.

“The Rover is a special kind of play not only because of the heightened language, but also because of the incredibly relevant content,” Allen said. “Women struggled just as hard back then to be independent and strong as they do now. It’s so amazing how the issues in this play are still so important.”

This featured play is a part of the “Women in the Spotlight: Plays by women” series, and was originally written by Aphra Behn back in 1677. Behn’s influential work invoked other women to become more involved in playwriting.

“What (the theater program) really needed to do is a play by the first acknowledged woman playwright,” Berman said.

The production of “The Rover” did have some obstacles to hurdle over.

The actor who played Willmore, Sean Casey, showed how cutting a five hour play almost in half was not easy.

“Since this play is an English Restoration piece, the heightened text and esoteric allusions have required a strict analysis on the part of the cast,” Casey said. “Every scene really needs to be taken line-by-line when reading through the script. With an audience attuned to the quick beat changes of television, and the short run time of new plays, trying to deliver a performance of something like ‘The Rover,’ which can easily last five hours, takes a lot of focus, endurance and perseverance.”

Preparation was scheduled far in advance to keep the students’ schedules less stressful.

Auditions were held in Max Noah Recital Hall on Nov. 2 and 3 so that they would not conflict with finals, papers or other assignments that occurred at the end of last semester for the students, according to Berman. The cast was to familiarize themselves with the script over winter break.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Mar 6 2009. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry