Drama tells redemption story
Department of Theatre Arts presents a narrative of morality in ‘Everyman’ show
GOOD versus evil — “Everyman” focused on the moment a man is told that his death is imminent and wants to change his fate. Photo credit: Joel Coleman
The gospel was presented in a whole new way by the Department of Theatre Arts when its movement-conceived adaptation of “Everyman” opened in the Tower Theater Thursday, March 19.
Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts Chris Nelson, who directed the show, estimated that 98 percent of the show is told without words. Because of the vitality of the show’s message, cast members hoped that this unique retelling would captivate the audience’s attention in a different way than a verbal story would.
“With words, it’s so easy to zone out,” freshman Ryan Hippe, who portrayed Everyman, said. “You hear enough words in a given day that they eventually start to lose their value. On this stage, there was no zoning out. There was no possible way you would ever lose the attention of what went on the stage.”
Senior Caleb Towns, who portrayed God, agreed with Hippe.
“This show tapped into a raw part of humanity,” Towns said. “Let’s cut the words and fluff and get right down to those hard-hitting themes (such as redemption and morality), which this show was packed full of.”
However, cutting the words provided the cast with a challenge, as there were no stage directions to help the actors to get to know their characters on a personal level.
“With acting, there’s internal and external action,” junior Heather Reed, who portrayed Death, said. “At least for my role, I didn’t have a lot of external action. I had to find things inside of me, in the thoughts that I’m having, that would force my feelings to come through externally so that the audience understood what had happened.
Because I’m an Angel of Death, the idea is that I’m a good character. A lot of times people associate death as a negative concept. Trying to take the internal as a human and understand an angel and perform it with grace was the biggest challenge for me.”
A team approach between the cast and the director also gave this show a unique twist.
“Many times in rehearsals, I asked students for their ideas, making this a truly collaborative process,” Nelson said.
According to Towns, the students appreciated the freedom they received from Nelson.
“This whole show has been very free,” Towns said. “Nelson let us do a lot early on in rehearsals, giving us some basic blocking and allowing us to express ourselves as actors. It’s been one of the most freeing shows we’ve done as a department because there’s no script or stage direction.”
Senior McKenzie Connell, who portrayed the Minion Leader, agreed with Towns.
“(Nelson) basically gave us an idea of what he wanted the scene to look like and some words we could draw some meaning from and told us to interpret it as we could,” Connell said. “The movements were based off things our bodies could naturally do and we built off that.”
Despite having very few words, the cast hoped the message of the gospel was not lost with the audience.
“(The play is) so pertinent to every person because it really is the story of how man relates to God and how God redeems us when we come back to him,” Connell said. “ … The story of temptation and evil drawing us away really shows how much we need God.”
Reed hoped the theme of redemption resonated with the audience.
“As cliché as it sounds, the gospel is such good news,” Reed said. “Seeing that our father is standing there with open arms, especially the moment at the very end when Everyman ran into God’s arms was such a big moment for me in my faith. I hoped the audience could see that God is there, even when we cry out (to him). … Even in those moments where we don’t hear him, he’s there for us.”
Through his movement-based approach, Nelson felt he was able to explore the theme of the story more in depth by really relating to the moral condition of man.
“When you look at ‘Everyman,’ what’s hidden, of course, is the temptations and the dark side,” Nelson said. “There’s other sides to a story you can explore when you open up a story to expression, which we were able to explore.” Everyman ran March 19-22 with a special sold-out midnight show March 20.
MAURER is a feature reporter.