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Show 5773 W 3rCr audience. The theater has always been a matter of imagination, of co-operation between actors and audience. We are now asking the audience to frankly recognize it and make-believe with us," Dr. Jones explained. The settings are not elaborate, a few tables and chairs in "Hamlet," two towers in "Romeo and Juliet" and only six ropes and two trapezes in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The costumes are not extravagant and no make-up is used. "We want the actor to find I'm this character-now r t Dr. Jones explained. hst' "A Midsummer Night's n presents the best exam?"1" these techniques. WiT '" twice as many parts as arT1 the company, most actor k" more than one role Six I ? actors, known in the corJ ' the "companions," have" ! of portraying their character, well as being fairies and trees and rocks when nee ? Presenting the plays in JJ" is one of the most aspects of this product!? . J 1 V Mi I i J; ' i !! & - - - ' J - - , t. t i J tJ, I By SUSAN MITCHELL Special to the Chronicle "The greatest thing an actor can give the audience is the reality of himself," said Jerzy Crotowski, director of the Polish Laboratory Theatre. Dr. David E. Jones, director of the Shakespeare company, quoted Crotowski to explain what he and the company are trying to do. Since last spring the Shakespeare company, consisting of 14 students (11 men and three women) has been rehearsing "Hamlet," "Romeo and Juliet" and "A. Midsummer Night's Dream." From the beginning their approach to and rehearsal of the plays has been unusual. "Theater is group work and we felt some aspects of group and social work might apply," said Dr. Jones. He has been working on the idea with Chris Hague, a graduate student in the school of Social Work, for the last three years. This year they decided to apply their ideas. "The key to the project is to have a group small enough so relationships between actors can be more easily integrated," Dr. Jones said. The next step was to give the students maximum participation in putting together the plays. "I gave up my function as director and became more of a group leader," he said. "The group chose the plays, cast them, decided on the basic production style and everything else that is usually considered to be the exclusive right of the director. We started out in the dark, but the ideas eventually evolved." The process wasn't easy though. They encountered the problems often found when 15 individuals try to agree on how to do something. "There was a lot of anguish and frustration. Some people left the company because they couldn't cope with it, but we were eventually in reasonable agreement as to what to do," Dr. Jones said. "I believe the group has grown as a result of this. They have become better actors. They have learned to use themselves more. They aren't as defensive when personally per-sonally criticized by either me or one of the other actors. They recognize that everyone is simply attempting to make the show better," he said. As John Betz, a member of the company put it, "We've merged our egos." One thing the actors agreed upon very early was to limit the technical aspects of the show. "We want to concentrate on the reality of the actor, the confrontation con-frontation between actor and Amy Nissen and Robert Nelsen are two of the "many-role" actoisii I ShakespeareVA Midsummer's Night Dream and others of his plays I something within himself deeper than appearances to convey the essence of the character," Dr. Jones said. "Another problem we've had is that with only 14 in the company, many people have had to play more than one part." "Instead of the actor trying to disguise himself differently for each role with make-up and costumes, we've used a technique called transformation. The actor simply changes his character by the way he acts and leaves the rest to the imagination of the audience. It's as if the actor simply says to the audience, now cording to Dr. Jones, "Repertoi-e is extremely difficult to rehears but very satisfying to play, to is less danger of the actor gettir: stale. Often a role in oneplaytf inforces one in another play It actor must also define his more precisely, be absolutely of the character of eat! Otherwise he'd have some ficulty in playing Puck (a fain r "A Midsummer Night's Dream in the afternoon and Hamlet fc night." Although the performances oil Shakespeare company for ' public will not start until Tue in the Babcock theater, tf in tne tsaDtotK uic.v, company has been performing" Salt Lake high school, juniorMs and elementary studnets ' Feb 7 "We love playing to hi; school students. They are so J-in J-in their responses an respond very honestly. " c don't like something, they W -know," Dr. Jones said. Dr. Jones admitted that a lot people may not like f company has done wr. plays. "People with any preconceived notions o Shakespeare should be p. probably shouldn't come, Dr. Jones believes there isj movement in theater. t technology and its dehum 0 effects. "Theatre seem ' moving towards more five co-operation bete and aud.ence, o reality and espec;; Hv "l0,c ing of humanity |
