Class time proves to benefit cast of ‘The Odyssey’
Senior Anthony Popenoe performs in the Aves Theatre’s production of Aida. In “The Odyssey” he will be playing the roles of Menelaus, the blind singer, a sailor, and a suitor, to name a few. Due to the ensemble nature of this show, almost every actor will be portraying multiple characters in the show.
Aves Theatre‘s production of “The Odyssey” will be put on by one of the Acting Ensemble classes. They are able to utilize class time to work on the show together at a higher level than they would be able to of this was a regular production.
“The class time allows us to work on specific aspects of the play, individually or in small groups, that would be harder to do at rehearsal,” said junior Max Poff.
Developing a character can take tremendous effort, and one way to work on that is by working on scenes with intended focus.
“Although ‘The Odyssey’ is a contemporary play with a contemporary tone, the language is still on the classical side. This provided a unique challenge for us as actors to effectively communicate our scenes to the audience,” said Poff.
In a class, as a drill, the students sometimes perform scenes in jibberish. During this exercise they use nonsense language instead of the actual words to execute the scene. This helps take the focus away from the words and puts it on the true meaning of the text.
“To put it simply, performing jibberish scenes is weird. At times it seems ridiculous and it’s hard not to break, but the result is definitely a better understanding of the subtext,” said senior Bailey McCarthy.
