PREVIEW: Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses at USC Lab Theatre

Senior theatre major Nakoa Zurlo as Hades  

The University of South Carolina theatre program will present Scenes from Metamorphoses, Mary Zimmerman’s profoundly moving adaptations of classic Greek myths, October 28-31 at the Lab Theatre.  

 Showtime is 8pm nightly.  Tickets are $10 and available online at sc.universitytickets.com.  

In keeping with university safety protocols, masks will be required of all audience members, actors and crew, and seating will be limited to allow for appropriate social distancing between all patrons.  The Lab Theatre is located at 1400 Wheat St. on the first floor of the Booker T. Washington building.   

While the show’s title might indicate an abridged version of Zimmerman’s popular play, the production will indeed contain all the original’s text but with a smaller-than-usual cast of seven.  Hailed in 2002 as “the theatre event of the year” (Time), the award-winning Metamorphoses is a breathtaking fusion of classic and contemporary storytelling, bringing Roman poet Ovid’s timeless myths to dazzlingly theatrical life. Mary Zimmerman’s daring adaptations explore the wide gamut of our universal experience, from love to loss, from joy to despair, connecting it all with the idea that nothing in life comes without transformation.  

"Mary Zimmerman's lovely, deeply affecting work...shows that theater can provide not just escape but sometimes a glimpse of the divine." — Time 

“It’s a really unique combination of adaptations of Ovid’s stories mixed mixed with other iterations of the myths and Zimmerman's own interpretations of who the characters are and what they could be,” says director Tiffani Hagan, a second-year graduate theatre student.  “Each story touches on universal themes like love or loss or fear of the unknown, making them stories that everyone can relate to.” 

The play juxtaposes the mythic stories of well-known characters such as Midas, the greedy king who receives the power to turn everything he touches to gold, with lesser-known figures like Erysichthon, cursed by the goddess Ceres to endure an insatiable hunger.  Hagan says this production emphasizes the anachronistic style of the myths as they are presented in the play, placing many of the ancient tales in modern, often humorous settings.  Think Midas as a Steve Jobs-esque business mogul or Apollo’s son Phaeton telling his story in a therapy session on a pool float. 

“The myths can jump in and out of time because they really are timeless,” says Hagan. 

Cast in the production are undergraduate students Asaru Buffalo, Ezri Fender, Cameron Giordano, Cady Gray, Brighton Grice, Carly Siegel, and Nakoa Zurlo.  The production’s design team includes third-year graduate student Heather Gonzalez (costumes) and undergraduates Logan Brodfuehrer (scenic), Brooks Beaty (lighting), and Josiah Burton (sound). 

 “These are stories we’ve all heard at some point in our lives,” says Hagan. “The characters show up again and again in television shows or movies, whether we recognize them as being originally Greek myths or not. This play is a fun way to see them in another light and in a new way.”  

For more information on Scenes from Metamorphoses or the theatre program at the University of South Carolina, contact Kevin Bush by phone at 803-777-9353 or via email at bushk@mailbox.sc.edu.  

 —Courtesy of USC Department of Theatre and Dance

PREVIEW: Herculine and Lola at USC's Center for Performance Experiment -- By Alivia L Seely

“People often think that identifying as transgender or words like 'intersex' are all new things, but the inclusion of Herculine’s story from the 1800s gives a different perspective. Struggles with gender identity and sexuality are not new--it’s just been excluded from the mainstream conversation,” -- Rachel Kuhnle, Lola in Herculine and Lola

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A jump through time and a change in culture, and yet, the same problem is still seen. Will comfort be felt or sexuality understood as playwright Dipika Guha’s script is brought to the stage?

Herculine and Lola is a play that showcases the struggles of gender identity and follows two women in their search to find peace with their bodies. Herculine Barbin is a women from the past. A schoolteacher in 19^th century France, Herculine writes a diary conveying her troubles as an intersex person. While leaping forward to present day, Lola is an American teenager who travels overseas with her parents, when they break some complicated news to her about her body.

“Lola looks and acts like a female and in fact believes she is a female until her parents inform her that it’s not so simple,” says Carin Bendas, a second-year MFA acting student at the University of South Carolina and playing the role of Lola.

Guha’s writing paints a picture of what it feels like to be someone struggling with gender identity. “This play has been enormously challenging to wrangle because of its structure and size. I wanted to create a three-part structure for the stage where we would depart and ‘be’ somewhere entirely different in the second part,” says Guha.

Herculine may be a piece of the past, but her problems are still prevalent in today’s contemporary culture, as audiences will see through Lola’s character. Rachel Kuhnle, also a second-year MFA acting student at USC and playing the role of Herculine, mentions never working in any production that takes sexuality and explores it so much. “People often think that identifying as transgender or words like 'intersex' are all new things, but the inclusion of Herculine’s story from the 1800s gives a different perspective. Struggles with gender identity and sexuality are not new--it’s just been excluded from the mainstream conversation,” says Kuhnle.

Most people have come across an intersex person before; we just wouldn’t normally notice it, Bendas mentions. As it seems, today’s culture is more understanding when it comes to an intersex or transgender person. Knowing that people had to deal with gender identity issues at a time when the culture was not as accepting really puts an emphasis on how evolved our culture has become-though obviously not far enough. Despite period differences, Herculine and Lola bond together through their imagination and love.“Our life experiences play a huge part in the characters we create, especially in a play where the characters' journeys are so personal,” says Kuhnle.

Audience members have to keep their imaginations going and remember the unique culture each character belongs to. With such dramatic time period shifts, showing scene changes can be a challenge, even for set designer and director Steven Pearson.“It’s a very cinematic play and to do that with a simple element, to bring to life what is written on the page, is always a challenge, especially to go from one environment to another and from one time to another. We are using more general furniture and props to have the audience’s imaginations anchor on them. But the most important part is the actors in it,” says Pearson.

This will be the first production of the play, and Guha is delighted to have Pearson behind her. “He understands what this play is after down to its marrow and has worked tirelessly to realize the story in a kind of bare theatrical landscape I had imagined when I wrote it,” says Guha. “He has given me the greatest gift that a playwright could ask for, which is the absolute commitment to staging the play as is written.”

The play will run from November 15-21 at the Center for Performance Experiment on 718 Devine St. Tickets are $5 and are available only at the door. Show times are 8 p.m. every night, and on Friday, November 20, two shows will run at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m.

USC Department of Theatre and Dance's Lab Theatre Brings Unique & Exciting Season - by Joanna Savold, Jasper intern

USC’s Department of Theatre and Dance is always striving to provide unique and challenging performances, and the department’s Lab Theatre – set in the intimate “black box” theatre space on 1400 Wheat St. – has a lineup this fall that is no exception.

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This weekend the Lab will be presenting Yellowman. The Dael Orlandersmith play revolves around the romance of Alma and Eugene, two youths who grew up in rural South Carolina. USC undergraduate students Brandon Byrd and Raven Massey will be portraying the lighter-skinned Eugene and the darker-toned Alma, respectively. The characters will, through Orlandersmith’s poetic lines, confront the internalized racism and discrimination in their community and themselves. But these issues are not confined to the performance; Director Patti Walker is sure the play will compel the audience to look inward as well and – in realizing harbored prejudices – enable real change.

The department admits that the simple act of staging a production that requires African American cast and characters is a vitally important step towards giving students representation in the artistic community. Walker also chose to alter the number of cast members in the play, in a conscious effort to give more African American actors opportunities through the Lab production. The originally two person cast now counts in at ten, with eight talented undergrads besides Byrd and Massey who will play characters in the protagonists’ community: Tiffany Failey, John Floyd, Jalissa Fulton, Natasha Kanunaido, Eldren Keys,Jon Whit McClinton, Tiera Smith and Olander Wilson.

Yellowman will open October 10 and run through to Oct 13, showing nightly at 8 pm. Tickets are $5 at the door, and seating is first-come, first-serve, so get there early for the best spots in the house.

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This isn’t all the Lab Theatre has to offer this year; on November 22 and 24, students from across campus will be performing original acts created in the time-starved intensity of a play festival. Under the supervision of Robyn Hunt, this unique project will follow in the improvised footsteps of other play festivals, such as Paula Vogel’s creation at Brown University and the Sandbox One-Act Play (SOAP) Festival in Seattle. Within a week before the first performance night, interested students will ‘draw’ or be randomly assigned roles in the performances; actors, directors, stage managers, and playwrights will all be determined by chance. And then the fun begins. Participants will have only a short window of time to create a script, set a scene, and rehearse before finally performing their original shorts for a live audience. After the Friday night performance, they’ll do it again! A host of brand new acts will accompany the second night of the festival, offering audiences two unique nights with new plays by students each night.

Hunt says the goal of the festival is to create “brand new theatre,” to have performances that are completely fresh and different from what theatre-goers have experienced before. Like the festival’s title, whose words all ears took captive, the acts will capture the audience in the excitement of something just invented. Hunt looks forward to seeing students collaborate on the project, which is open to USC students of any major, grad and undergrad.

whose words all ears took captive will also be $5 at the door and is scheduled to start at 8 pm on November 22 and 24. Neither will be a night to miss!

For more information on the Lab's productions or USC's theatre program, visit the Department of Theatre and Dance's website: http://artsandsciences.sc.edu/thea/

-- Joanna Savold, Jasper Intern