A strong 2017 for Hamline Theatre
Theatre brings Shakespeare and moving dance performances to campus.
Hamline’s spring 2016 show, “Intimate Apparell,” leaves audiences thinking about the struggles surrounding life in 1900s Manhattan as an African American woman.
September 28, 2016
Hamline’s Theatre Department has long been providing students, alumni and local citizens affordable and impressive theatre, and this year’s season looks no different.
First, in November, the department will be performing the iconic play by William Shakespeare, “Hamlet” directed by Theatre Professor Jeff Turner. It will run during the second and third weekends of that month with all shows starting at 7:30 p.m.
“Though ‘Hamlet’ was written 400 years ago, it is a play that truly speaks to the anxieties and obsessions of our contemporary age,” Turner said. “It holds a mirror up to nature reflecting the best and worst of human existence, and it is centered around a deeply flawed young man who is worked into a frenzy of mania and madness as he attempts to do the right thing in an absurd and unjust world.”
“The Seagull,” Hamline’s fall 2015 show, focuses on the life and strife of Russian actress Irina Arkadina and her lover, Boris Trigorin.
Turner described the well-known piece as being considered “one of the greatest plays of the modern epoch.” The play follows the character for who it’s named, a young prince of Denmark in the wake of his father’s death and his mother’s quick marriage to the new king, his uncle. After a ghostly reincarnation of his father returns urging Hamlet to seek vengeance for his murder, the character must struggle to find the right path of action and their consequences.
This Shakespearean play will later be complemented by the Spring season’s showing of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead,” a comically deep look at two characters who have so little meaning within the original piece but are given much more consideration.
Following “Hamlet,” December will bring a different kind of performance with “Under Construction,” a dance showcase designed by Twin Cities choreographers and members of the Dance II class at Hamline. The show is directed by Kaori Kenmotsu, senior lecturer of dance and theatre.
Fittingly named, “Under Construction,” is the annual showing of works in progress. It’s meant to be a part of the development process for the represented piece where audience members provide feedback that leads to editing and development. Once re-worked, all the pieces will re-appear in the May show, “Exposed.” Some will additionally be selected for presentation at the American College Dance Association’s North Central Regional Conference in March.
Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy “The Pillowman,” touches on the often twisted life of artists and the everlasting question: what is fact and what is illusion?
Kenmotsu described the importance this mid-way check in point for a choreographer within the development of a piece.
“It is critical in the creative process for a choreographer to step back and watch his/her work on stage before it is fully formed,” said Kenmotsu. “It is my goal in Under Construction to create an open and relaxed space for choreographers to show work in an environment that allows for ‘mistakes’ to happen.”
Some of the pieces will include Kenmotsu’s own work, “V(ulnerable) Bodies,” which collaborated with an entirely female cast and looks into forms of “micro-aggression” as compounded by silence with issues like society’s double standards, slut shaming, body image and even deeper traumas; Ethan Mundt’s piece “Cusp” on the coming out experience; Senior Sophia Myers-Kelley’s piece about living abroad in Japan and guest artist Judith James Ries’ pieces on the notion and multiple variations of “gripping.”
More information for Hamline’s Theatre including all dates, times and ticket prices can be found on their website: http://www.hamline.edu/cla/theatre-arts/.