November 7, 2002
Intimate theater, bargain price at Studio 201
The School of Drama’s problem becomes a special opportunity for the UW audience when the school’s new “Studio 201” series opens Nov. 8.
The problem is the need to have enough work for student actors. Or, as Drama Professor Jon Jory puts it, “If you are going to train actors for the profession, you have to give them the hard climb, i.e., the big part, because playing a large role is almost literally a different universe from playing a small role.”
But with 36 actors in the drama school’s Professional Actor Training Program and nine full-scale productions each year, it’s hard to give everyone enough big parts. There isn’t enough money in the budget or space in the school’s theaters to mount more major productions, so what do you do?
If you are the drama school, you mount no-frills productions in a former gymnasium and offer them at a discount price.
Studio 201 is, in fact, Room 201 in Hutchinson Hall, the building that was once the home of women’s physical education on campus. The drama school has divided the building’s former gymnasium into several studio spaces, one of which is used for performances. It contains black curtains, stage lighting, seats on risers and that’s about all.
The productions in Studio 201, therefore, will have little in the way of scenery and the costumes will come out of available stock in the school’s costume shop.
“This series is sort of about a plank and a passion,” Jory says. “It isn’t about the sets, it isn’t about the costumes; it’s about the acting and the texts, and by extension, the directing.”
It’s also about the audience getting to see a show close up (Studio 201 seats a maximum of 75) at a low price. A pass to see all three shows is just $9; single tickets are $5.
“Studio 201 gives the audience an opportunity to be close enough to actually be impacted by the performance rather than remaining at an aesthetic distance,” Jory says.
Jory is directing the show that will kick off the series, Nora, opening Nov. 8. The play is an adaptation by Ingmar Bergman of the Henrik Ibsen classic A Doll’s House.
“It’s a great play adapted for his own purposes by a great director,” Jory says. “You not only have a modern master in Ibsen but you have a master of modern stagecraft in Bergman and I find that extremely interesting.”
Jory says Bergman follows the epigram of film writing — that you start as far into the scene as possible. “He wants to cut away the trappings and get right to the crucial and brutal heart of the play.”
Nora, therefore, is a stripped-down (though still full-length) version of A Doll’s House, but with its full impact intact.
Two Sisters and a Piano is the next production in the series, slated for Dec. 6–15. Assistant Professor Cathy Madden directs the play, based on the life story of Cuban artist Maria Elena Cruz Valeria, who was placed under house arrest because of her anticommunist writing.
“I was really interested in directing for Studio 201 because the focus of the work is on actors and the relationship of actors to the audience, and that’s the thing I like working with most,” Madden says.
The play’s story, she says, is about love and hope — the hope of being able to leave Cuba. “It’s a challenge for the actors because they must create the relationship between two sisters unable to get away from each other. Each is trying to find a way to live fully in restricted circumstances.”
The third play in the series won’t be presented until May. It’s an original piece by Steve Pearson, head of the PATP, called Balance. Pearson promises a rather unusual night in the theater.
“I was interested in the idea of balance, and by extension, imbalance,” he says. “I started with the Oxford English Dictionary definition and was surprised by how many different things it refers to. I began to consider what would happen if the literal meaning was put together with the figurative meaning. For instance, if the plot were about balance of power and the actor would have to balance physically at the same time.”
With that as a premise, Pearson says the actors might be doing some work with trapezes, or with a pendulum. He’s also built a special stage that has a central point of balance. It rocks when actors are on it and can either be in balance or not.
All of which should keep the audience a little off balance, which is probably a good thing.
“The important thing, I think, is that 201 is going to feel more like a village square than it’s going to feel like a traditional theater,” Jory says. “You’ll come in and sit down and hopefully a first rate theatrical atmosphere will be there. So bring your comfortable shoes and your imagination.”
Studio 201 passes are available at the Arts Ticket Office, 4001 University Way NE. Single tickets are available at the door 20 minutes before showtime. Nora plays Friday and Saturday, Nov. 8 and 9, and Wednesday through Sunday, Nov. 13-17.
