{"id":159,"date":"2015-04-17T19:53:54","date_gmt":"2015-04-17T19:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/?p=159"},"modified":"2017-02-09T11:19:11","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T16:19:11","slug":"the-world-of-the-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/2015\/the-world-of-the-play\/","title":{"rendered":"The World of the Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

For “Betty the Yeti,” the opening production of Eldred Theater’s 2013-14 season, set designer Jill Davis created an old-growth forest out of commercial fishing nets. Photo by Peter Jennings.<\/p><\/div>\n

The rehearsals begin in a studio directly beneath the roof of Clark Hall, where you would expect to find nothing more than an attic. It\u2019s a bare, rectangular space, with a sloping ceiling, a hardwood floor and rows of windows on three sides; the only furnishings are a small table and a scattering of chairs. But as the days pass, the room takes on some of the characteristics of a stage. Props arrive\u2014a lantern, a pair of binoculars, an ax. Winding strips of tape appear on the floor, indicating the future contours of a set. It\u2019s all mapped out: where actors will pretend to step onto a ridge in an old-growth forest, where they will have to make their way around a Douglas fir.<\/p>\n

The show taking shape here is named for a woodland creature, albeit an imaginary one. Betty the Yeti: An Eco-Fable<\/i>, <\/b><\/i>by Jon Klein, received its world premiere in 1994. On one level, it\u2019s a political play, addressing an issue\u2014wilderness preservation\u2014as relevant now as it was 20 years ago. But it\u2019s also a comedy with absurd and fanciful elements, including a mysterious beast whose right to protection as an endangered species becomes a point of contention.<\/p>\n

A revival of Betty the Yeti <\/i>opened the 2013-14 season at Eldred Theater, the home of Case Western Reserve\u2019s undergraduate theater program. Every year, the program mounts four productions, directed by faculty members or guest artists, in which students assume a variety of creative and technical roles. They are the actors, stage managers and sound designers. They run the lights, sew the costumes and hammer together the sets. The primary aim of all this activity is educational; it gives students a chance to learn every aspect of theater. But at the end of the process, Professor and Artistic Director Jerrold Scott<\/b> points out, an audience is waiting. The show must open on schedule. And the world of the play must be as fully realized as everyone involved can make it.<\/p>\n

\"Not

Not yet in costume, Eliana Fabiyi (left) and Tanaquil Marquez rehearse the opening scene of “Betty the Yeti” on the Eldred stage. Photo by Peter Jennings.<\/p><\/div>\n

In early September, less than three weeks before opening night, Tanaquil Marquez <\/b>is rehearsing the first scene of Betty the Yeti <\/i>with fellow senior Eliana Fabiyi<\/b>. Marquez is playing Clare, the owner of a logging operation in western Oregon; Fabiyi is Iko, a ranger with the U.S. Forest Service. As the scene begins, Marquez is peering through binoculars, but Scott, who\u2019s directing this production, notices she isn\u2019t holding them correctly. She admits she has never used binoculars before.<\/p>\n

To the other actors, her confession seems as surprising and comical as the play itself, and they allow themselves some merriment at her expense. But Marquez remains unruffled. \u201cI was never in the Girl Scouts!\u201d she tells them. After Fabiyi gives her some pointers, she walks to a window, lifts the binoculars to her face again and looks out at the trees on the Mather quad. The ribbing continues for a while, but it\u2019s the kind that occurs among friends.<\/p>\n

The play has only six roles, and the actors who have landed them\u2014theater majors all\u2014are at ease as an ensemble. Most have taken classes together and appeared in previous mainstage productions. They have also acted, directed or designed sets for smaller shows in Eldred\u2019s black box theater. Several are active in IMPROVment, an improvisational comedy troupe that gives more than 40 performances a year. Their varied experiences in the theater, and their comfort level with one another, give them confidence as they take on the challenges this show presents.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Jerrold Scott, artistic director of Eldred Theater, allows his actors the freedom to experiment with different approaches to their characters. \u201cI give people enough rope,\u201d he says, \u201cand when it looks like they\u2019re going to hang themselves, I tug on it.\u201d Among the theater students, Scott is well known\u2014notorious, even\u2014for his \u201cJerry metaphors.\u201d Photo by Peter Jennings.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cBetty the Yeti<\/i> is an interesting play, because it requires a very delicate walk in how the actors play the roles,\u201d Scott says. \u201cIf they are too absurd, the argument of the play loses its resonance. But if they go too far the other way and allow the play to become a political treatise, they lose the joy and the fun of the comedy. So it\u2019s always a delicate balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Creative License<\/h3>\n

As Scott and the actors delve into the script, much of their talk focuses on the relationships between the characters. Clare, who regards the old-growth forest as so much timber, has one ally as the action begins\u2014an ace logger named Russ (Thomas Burke<\/b>). Until recently, he was both her employee and her son-in-law. But regulations protecting the habitats of endangered species have cost him his job, and his marriage to Clare\u2019s daughter, Terra (Elizabeth Huddleston<\/b>), <\/b><\/i>is in ruins. Appalled by the damage already inflicted on the forest, Terra has become an environmentalist. She\u2019s left her husband and taken up with a man Clare calls \u201ca green freak,\u201d a ponytailed activist named Trey (Jason Sleisenger<\/b>). The clashes between these characters, involving ordinary human feelings as well as the fate of the earth, only intensify once the yeti (Sara Bogomolny<\/b>) makes her appearance.<\/p>\n

“I don’t often get to do comedy,” says Elizabeth Huddleston. “It was tremendously fun.” In “Betty the Yeti,” she played several scenes opposite Jason Sleisenger, who enjoyed exploring the inconsistencies of his character: an environmentalist who is oddly indifferent to the beauty of the forest he is trying to save. Photo by Peter Jennings.<\/p><\/div>\n

Beginning at 6 each evening, the actors arrive and tackle the play scene by scene. Scott looks on as they rehearse, laughing at certain lines as if he\u2019s never heard them before, often interrupting to pose a question or make a point. He asks the cast to recognize what the characters have at stake at each moment, to imagine their inner conflicts and the things they leave unsaid. And each new insight contributes to the process of shaping a performance.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, Scott tells the actors exactly what he wants\u2014a pause, a gesture, an inflection. At other times, he invites them to explore alternatives. Like the actors, he, too, is maintaining a delicate balance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the most important thing in a director is coming in with a vision and being completely confident about that vision,\u201d says Fabiyi, who studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London during her junior year. \u201cIf the director doesn\u2019t know what he wants out of the play, then no one will, and it will dissolve into chaos.\u201d On the other hand, she pays tribute to Scott for guiding her, not dictating, as she refined her approach to her role.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve often been cast as either a little kid or as a wacky character,\u201d Fabiyi explains. \u201cIko is one of my first really grown-up and normal characters\u2014she\u2019s the straight man to everyone else\u2019s wackiness. So I really had to tone down my silliness. Jerry was trying to get that from me without saying it outright, so that I could find it myself. And I think I finally came around to what he wanted me to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actors also develop their parts by reacting to one another. Huddleston says this is especially true as she rehearses her scenes with Burke. Because they play an estranged couple, their dialogue bristles with reproaches and stinging retorts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dynamics between us keep changing,\u201d says Huddleston, who has studied at the Moscow Art Theatre School. \u201cTom, a couple of nights back, found a different reading on a line that had been really accusatory before, but also a little bit wounded. So my response to that line was very different, too. Once we get into performance, there are all kinds of surprises.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gradually, the actors disappear into their characters, adopting mannerisms and facial expressions quite distinct from their natural ones. As Clare, Marquez acquires an assertive stride and a gruff, belligerent voice. Burke devises a repertoire of hand gestures to communicate with the yeti. As Trey, Sleisenger seems to direct some of his lines not to the characters around him, but to a gallery of admirers only he can see.<\/p>\n

Bogomolny, in the title role, must define her character almost entirely through movement; the yeti does not speak. And so, early in the rehearsal process, she works with a movement specialist, Visiting Assistant Professor Christopher Bohan<\/b>, who invites her to imagine the creature\u2019s life in the wild.<\/p>\n

\"Sara

Sara Bogomolny, in the title role of “Betty the Yeti,” wore a black mask during rehearsals to set herself apart from the human characters. And yet, Betty is fascinated by manmade objects\u2014everything from tripods to video games. Photo by Peter Jennings.<\/p><\/div>\n

Bohan gives Bogomolny a series of prompts: \u201cHave some fun chasing a rabbit around and scaring it. Look at the full moon. Find your way back home and go to sleep. Let something in your dream startle you and scare you awake.\u201d With each scenario, the actor confronts an array of choices. How apelike will the yeti\u2019s gait be? How will she use her hands? The session also includes breathing and vocalization exercises. No one has ever heard a yeti; what will her growl sound like?<\/p>\n

Later, Bogomolny receives additional coaching from Ron Wilson,<\/b> the department chair and the <\/b>Katharine Bakeless Nason Professor of Theater. He offers advice about her first entrance, when the yeti approaches a tent Russ has pitched in a clearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had been creeping onstage very slowly,\u201d Bogomolny recalls. \u201cA real animal instinct might be to do just that\u2014to come on very slowly and tentatively or cautiously. But Ron suggested that I hop onstage.\u201d That way, her entrance would startle the audience and make the scene \u201cpop.\u201d Bogomolny says that Wilson was reminding her of an important lesson: \u201cAs an actor, it\u2019s my creative license to present myself and my character with a sense of theatricality.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Work in Progress<\/h3>\n

Eight days before the opening, the rehearsals move from Clark Hall to Eldred\u2019s main stage. The set is a work in progress. A few wooden panels, painted to look like stretches of cloudy sky, are suspended against the back wall, but others haven\u2019t been installed yet. Platforms representing higher ground are anchored to the floor. Descending lengths of brown fabric evoke the trunks of distant trees.<\/p>\n

Creating trees for the foreground was the greatest challenge for Assistant Professor Jill Davis, <\/b>resident scenic and lighting designer, and Adjunct Lecturer Homer Farr<\/b>, technical director and scene shop foreman. The forest in this play must be easy to dismantle. At the end of Act I, Clare wrangles permission to cut down the old growth before an environmental lawsuit can stop her. And so, during intermission, everything except the Douglas fir must come down.<\/p>\n

Davis solved the problem by making the trees out of commercial fishing nets. Onstage, they look like towers of macram\u00e9\u2014nothing like a literal forest, but ideal for a fable. The nets hang from hooks too high for the audience to see; at their base are wooden rounds that will later serve as stumps. At intermission, tech crew member Zachary Leibell<\/b>, a theater and physics major, will appear onstage wielding a mock chain saw. One by one, the nets will be released from their hooks, drop to the ground and be cleared away.<\/p>\n

Their first night in Eldred, the actors run through the entire play. Navigating the actual set\u2014the trees, the platforms, a fallen log where characters sometimes sit down\u2014is harder than the audience may realize. Before the actors block out all their movements, they will sometimes upstage one another, exit in the wrong direction or brush against a shaft of netting. (\u201cDon\u2019t bring the tree down,\u201d Scott says one night. \u201cThat will make Jill cry.\u201d) And now that they\u2019ve left the studio, their voices have to carry, especially from the back of the stage, where Russ\u2019 tent stands beside an artificial campfire.<\/p>\n

\"As

As Bogomolny portrayed her, the yeti seemed almost human at times, and very much a wild creature at others. Her character, playwright Jon Klein says, \u201cneeds to be as fully developed and considered as anyone else in the play\u2014this is not just an actor in a monkey suit.\u201d Photo by Peter Jennings.<\/p><\/div>\n

The actors will experience several milestones on their journey to opening night. There\u2019s the first time they perform the play in costume\u2014Bogomolny in fur and face paint, Sleisenger in a wig that provides him with Trey\u2019s ponytail. Then there\u2019s a marathon tech rehearsal\u201410 hours on a Sunday, working out sound and light cues and all the logistics of the production.<\/p>\n

If these students were in a professional company, this show would be their full-time job. As it is, when they leave the tech rehearsal at 10 p.m., they head off to the library to prepare for exams or write papers. At Case Western Reserve, undergraduates majoring in theater, music or dance have academic schedules as demanding as anyone else\u2019s. They are not earning a specialized fine arts degree; instead, they must fulfill all the requirements for a bachelor\u2019s degree.<\/p>\n

In addition, many performance students are double majors. Among the cast members in Betty the Yeti<\/i>, Burke is completing a second major in economics, Fabiyi in anthropology, Huddleston in psychology and Marquez in Spanish. To Fabiyi, this is one of the program\u2019s strengths. \u201cStudents take what they learn outside and apply it to their characters and apply it to their method,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt makes for really great theater here.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the tech rehearsal behind them, the actors start doing a run-through every night. Stage manager Paige Klopfenstein<\/b>, a theater and nursing major, times each one down to the second. Shaving two minutes from Act I is a triumph; it means the show is surging forward, gathering comic momentum. After each performance, Scott addresses the cast, offering a medley of praise, advice and instructions. Up to the last minute, there will be tiny adjustments to every facet of the show, including the music between scenes and the arrangement of props. Assistant Professor Angelina Herin<\/b>, resident costume designer and costume shop manager, will tinker throughout the final week with the quantity and color of the fur around the yeti\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

With only a few nights to go, Timothy Koch<\/b> (CWR \u201908), one of Scott\u2019s former students, drops by to watch a rehearsal. He\u2019s on campus for Homecoming Weekend, during which he\u2019s been honored as one of the university\u2019s outstanding young alumni. Koch has worked as an assistant director on two Broadway shows; last spring, he served as associate director of a London play featuring actress Judi Dench. Now, he takes a seat beside Scott a few rows from the back of the house. They whisper back and forth and often laugh at the same jokes.<\/p>\n

In addition to studying directing with Scott, Koch appeared in several of his productions. During the run-through, he says later, he could see the hallmarks of his mentor\u2019s style: \u201cthe crispness of the language, the drive of the text, the strength of the staging. Those are three things I always keep in mind when I\u2019m directing my own work.\u201d He adds, \u201cIt\u2019s great to be sitting next to him years later and still learning lessons even now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finding the Play<\/h3>\n

<\/i>The Eldred premiere of Betty the Yeti <\/i>nearly fills the house. As the 100 audience members take their seats, they hear a forest soundtrack\u2014flowing water, cicadas, a spotted owl\u2014mixed by Austin Kilpatrick<\/b>, a theater and accounting major. The set has a dusky glow, courtesy of Maureen Patterson<\/b>, guest lighting designer. Klopfenstein, along with the sound and light board operators, looks on from the control room, ready to give the first cues.<\/p>\n

\"\"

In the opening scenes of \u201cBetty the Yeti,\u201d Thomas Burke portrayed Russ, an unemployed logger, as a hardened man with \u201can extremely pessimistic outlook on life.\u201d But once Russ finds something to care about, Burke says, he becomes \u201ca better person.\u201d Photo by Peter Jennings.<\/p><\/div>\n

Opening night audiences are especially responsive, and the laughter at this performance begins before a single line is spoken. As the lights come up, Marquez is scrutinizing the trees through her binoculars, an exaggerated scowl on her face; at the sight of her, the students in the front rows start chortling. Her parents, who are actors themselves, are in the audience, and for the first 30 seconds of the play, her own mother doesn\u2019t know her.<\/p>\n

The performance is sharper and more spirited than any of the rehearsals. All at once, Scott says afterward, it was as if the actors found <\/i>the play.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, the stars have to align,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe actors have to be in the right place, emotionally and spiritually. They have to be rested and not hungry. Their homework has to be done. For whatever reason, opening night, all the pieces went click. Everybody knew what they wanted and how they were going to get it, and they were in sync with their partners. It was a lovely, lovely show. I was very proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

The production kept evolving for the rest of the run. There were six performances altogether, and the actors say the best was a Sunday matinee. But they all remember the distinctive energy of opening night, the way that everything came together, the moments of surprise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t have expected some of our characters\u2019 reactions to Betty\u2014little throwaway gestures\u2014to be so funny to the audience,\u201d Burke says. \u201cYou worry sometimes that no one sees or notices some of the stuff you do onstage. So when people respond, you feel validated. You recognize there\u2019s a purpose for all your hard work, that it has a value within the play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The rehearsals begin in a studio directly beneath the roof of Clark Hall, where you would expect to find nothing more than an attic. It\u2019s a bare, rectangular space, with a sloping ceiling, a hardwood floor and rows of windows on three sides; the only furnishings are a small table and a scattering of chairs. …Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artscimedia.case.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2015\/04\/14220443\/stage-set_BTY_26p_cropped.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1870,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions\/1870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsci.case.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}