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BRYN MAWR-HAVERFORD THEATER COMPANY TO STAGE
CHARLES MEE'S BIG LOVE
One of the oldest known Greek dramas was the inspiration for the "very fresh, very contemporary" play Big Love, which will bring "exuberant physicality, passionate politics and lots of blood" to Goodhart’s main stage at 7:30 p.m. on April 2, 3 and 4 and April 8, 9 and 10, says Director K. Elizabeth Stevens, lecturer in the Arts Program. Stevens will lead a cast of 19 Bi-College students in the Bryn Mawr-Haverford Theater Company’s production of the play, Charles Mee’s adaptation of The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus.
Big Love presents the story of 50 sisters who flee forced marriages to their 50 cousins and seek asylum on a Mediterranean island. When their suitors pursue them to the island, the sisters must devise a plan to guarantee their liberty. Big Love uses the 2,500-year-old story to deal with contemporary issues of gender inequality and sexual coercion.
Mee takes his plot from the classical model, but presents it as a thoroughly postmodern pastiche that "leaps all over the place in time, style and tone," says Stevens. "It includes everything from Ella Fitzgerald-style swing to frenzied extremes of emotion which literally cause people to throw their bodies to the ground. It’s like a circus, with a lot of virtuosic, athletic movement." The play’s extensive use of expressive gesture aligns it with an avant-garde movement toward interdisciplinary theater that bridges the gap between drama and dance.
Andrew Simonet of Philadelphia’s acclaimed Headlong Dance Theater choreographed the fight scenes, Stevens says. The sets are designed by the award-winning Bryn Mawr Designer and Technical Director of Theater Hiroshi Iwasaki. Iwasaki is aided by a number of student helpers, says Stevens: "Lots of people are involved because it’s a technically complex and very difficult production."
Lindsay Barton, Haverford ’04, will stage-manage the play. Ten Bryn Mawr and nine Haverford students will act in the production, including Cindy Chang, Haverford ’05, Christine Hagy ’04, Lauren Friedman ’05, Shaheen Kabir, Haverford ’05, Margot LeClair, Haverford ’04, Courtney Lewis, Haverford ’05, Rachel Nehmer, Haverford ’04 and Nora Sidoti ’07, who will play the brides.
The play is free to students, faculty and staff of Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges. Tickets are $5 for the general public. Tickets can be reserved by e-mailing theater@brynmawr.edu. For more information, call the Office for the Arts at 610-526-5210.
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