{"id":6234,"date":"2017-05-31T08:00:21","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T16:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=6234"},"modified":"2017-05-30T16:46:04","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T00:46:04","slug":"western-theatre-delves-magical-realism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/western-theatre-delves-magical-realism\/","title":{"rendered":"Western theatre delves into magical realism"},"content":{"rendered":"
By: Ashton Newton\r\nEntertainment Editor<\/pre>\n
Western\u2019s theatre department has put on a number of engaging and fun productions throughout the year and their latest is right around the corner.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing,\u201d originally written by Finegan Kruckemeyer, is the latest play that Western\u2019s theatre department has been hard at work preparing for. The play includes 18 Western students acting and guest director, Jen Rowe.<\/p>\n
Rowe is a director\/actor based out of Portland, Oregon who founded The Quick and Dirty Art Project in 2010, where she produced and directed seven shows. Rowe also directed Idris Goodwin\u2019s \u201cHow We Got On\u201d at the Portland Playhouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing\u201d is a fable that follows triplet sisters and their struggles growing up and finding their way in life after being abandoned in the woods.<\/p>\n
The play stars Lindsay Spear, junior Bachelor of Fine Arts acting major, as Albienne, Chynna Shurts, first-year Bachelor of Fine Arts theatre major, as Beatrix, and Natalie Doerfler, sophomore Bachelor of Fine Arts theatre major, as Carmen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would describe this story as a coming of age story. It\u2019s a story about human resiliency, a story that embraces the message that \u2018new days are always the best time for starting life journeys.\u2019 Each of these girls, everyday, they choose to adventure in a new way and it leads them after 20 years to growing up and understanding more about themselves and who they are as people,\u201d said Rowe.<\/p>\n
The three sisters have disparate character traits that affect how they act in the play and sends them in different directions.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlbienne is the oldest of the triplets, if that can mean anything. She likes to act like it. She\u2019s very much a leader and she likes to lead people, people are drawn to her strong personality,\u201d said Spear.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeatrix is a child of the sun, she\u2019s an adventure, always climbing trees and exploring the world. She\u2019s not afraid to explore the world, she really wants to get out there and see what there is,\u201d added Shurts.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarmen is very much an introvert, while her two other sisters are extroverts. She likes to care for other people. She\u2019s happy where she is. She has, what we reference in this show as a backpack called the Weight of the World, which she carries on her shoulders. It\u2019s not something that she feels obligated to do, it\u2019s something she enjoys to do because she just likes seeing the world as how it is,\u201d said Doerfler.<\/p>\n
The play is unlike other plays in that it doesn\u2019t have a set, it\u2019s an open, narrative fable, so Rowe had to get creative with directing.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy experience directing this play has been one of trying to bring as many exciting elements together and find marriages between them. I\u2019m given the opportunity to create a completely original, novel way of telling a story through theatre,\u201d said Rowe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have decided to have 18 people in this cast, the largest cast I\u2019ve ever had has been nine, so I doubled it. I\u2019ve decided to have a shadow play, I\u2019ve decided to bring in music and instruments that are not in the script. I have decided to allow the spectacle of storytelling to tell from the bodies on stage and the physicality of our actors rather than trying to represent that with set pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n
Working on \u201cThis Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing\u201d hasn\u2019t been without fun for everyone involved. All through rehearsals, the cast and crew have been having a great time working on the play.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that I\u2019ve been trying to hammer in is the idea of \u2018play\u2019 in our play. Although we\u2019re trying to tell a story that is a fable, and the reason we call it a fable is because it deals with a very heavy, realistic and grounded situation, these girls are abandoned in the wood and set off to conquer the woods on their own terms,\u201d said Rowe. \u201cFinding the balance between the reality of their story and the \u2018play\u2019 of getting to tell this kind of story through magical realism was one of my big goals, so for most of rehearsals we\u2019d play a game.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing\u201d runs from May 31 to June 3 in Rice Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. and June 1-2 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $14 or $8 with a Western student I.D.<\/p>\n
\u201cAllow yourself to enjoy this show as much as we enjoyed creating this show,\u201d said Doerfler.<\/p>\n
Contact the author at journalentertainment@wou.edu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By: Ashton Newton Entertainment Editor Western\u2019s theatre department has put on a number of engaging and fun productions throughout the year and their latest is right around the corner. \u201cThis Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing,\u201d originally written by Finegan Kruckemeyer, is the latest play that Western\u2019s theatre department has been hard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":937,"featured_media":6292,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/937"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}