| We Can't Reach You, Hartford |
 An investigative history of the Hartford Circus Fire of July 6th, 1944. Nominated for a Fringe First at the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. |
| Daguerreotype |
| In the twilight of his life, famed photographer Matthew Brady must choose between the life he has built and the legacy he wants to leave behind. |
| Tone Clusters |
| Renowned prose author Joyce Carol Oates explores honesty, perspective, and denial through one couple's harrowing attempt to save the person they love |
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| Monday, April 16, 2007 |
| Hartford in Review |
Since complications have delayed Jess's final thoughts on We Can't Reach You, Hartford (a cataclysmic cacophony of thesis-sized proportions), here's a few tidbits of the wonderful laudatory review from the alma mater:
[Jess] Chayes' play combined a thrilling sense of showmanship with a delicate appreciation for the emotional mysteries of individuals caught in the crossfire of public tragedy. In the skilled hands of Chayes and her cast and crew, the gulf between big-top frivolity and painful catastrophe became a potent metaphor for the fascinating, frustrating divide between past and present.
Chayes and her talented designers found particularly striking visuals to complement and enrich the difficult questions she raises. Scenic Designer Nick Benacerraf '08 captured a state of ghostly decay in his aging circus set, complete with ragged big-top cloth and splintering risers.
As any Wesleyan theatergoer knows, it practically goes without saying that the lighting by Greg Malen '07 proved mesmerizing in its subtle shifts in mood and meaning. While there was not an isolated moment within "Hartford" as breathtaking as the bleak, beautiful sunrise with which he chose to end Mike James' '07 production of "Electra," Malen, whose work here comprises his senior thesis, expertly balanced a variety of tones, ranging from the hellish glow of the inferno to the sickly bright light of the de facto morgue that housed the charred corpses.
And [Edward] Bauer, continuing a string of sterling work on the stage, instilled the specter of Barnum with a wild-eyed, go-for-broke intensity at once immensely appealing and somewhat unsettling. But if Bauer's Barnum possessed the cheery coarseness of a born showman, he also found intriguing notes of dissonance in Barnum's bluster. Suddenly, this symbol of showbiz past became flesh and blood in his ambivalence.
The entire review can here read here
And for the nostalgic among us, our review from our Fringe First nominated production of Hartford at the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival can be read here |
posted by stephen @ 10:45 AM  |
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