A Director's Vision: Stephanie Breinholt Imagines Sevant of Two Masters
October 29, 2012 12:00 AM
Janine Sobeck
by Janine Sobeck, dramaturg
If you've ever had the opportunity to see a Stephanie Breinholt show at BYU, then you know that she loves to take classical texts and bring them to life with big, bold choices. Her upcoming production of The Servant of Two Masters is no different.
One of Stephanie's favorite classical texts, Servant is full of crazy characters, zany antics and extreme situations. Stephanie wants to emphasize the cartoon aspects of the script, creating a modern interpretation that is bright, colorful and hilarious.
In Stephanie's original pitch for the show, she described the following:
"I would like the piece to feel like a 3-D version of a cartoon...The feel of the show that I’m currently looking for can best be described through the following clip from Strictly Ballroom:
The elements that strike me about the clip are broad strokes of character that are matched in design elements, extreme non-realistic lighting when appropriate, larger than life costume and makeup choices and movement, and the theatricality of the environment."
As you can imagine, the design team is pretty excited about this. Check back to see how they are using Stephanie's vision to create our crazy comical Servant world.
After months of rehearsing on a taped cement floor with acting blocks in place of benches and frames in place of doors, the company finally moves to the theatre space, to a stage with levels and furniture, working doors and chairs out in the audience. The beloved cherry orchard feels so much more real now.
Near the end of his life, Anton Chekhov who had suffered from tuberculosis and depression throughout his life, decided to move to the seaside town of Yalta in order to heal. On January 18, 1904, he wrote to his wife, the actress Olga Knipper, “I’m writing The Cherry Orchard very slowly. Sometimes I feel it’s a success, sometimes a failure…It’s all very ordinary, but that’s how things are, unfortunately.”
For this production we are trying something new! You'll still see some dramaturgical information in your printed program, including the dramaturg's note, "The Weight of Waiting in The Cherry Orchard."