On the evening of December 10, 2010, Russian students at Dickinson performed their adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s satirical play The Inspector General to a full house of students, professors, and Carlisle residents. The performance, held at the Cubiculo on High Street, was entirely in Russian, with English subtitles projected alongside the stage. This particular adaptation was student-run, directed, designed, and acted, with the Fourth-Year Russian class (RUSS 360) working on the staging of the play over the course of the fall 2010 semester. Several students in Intermediate Russian (RUSS 116) also assisted by performing minor roles.
“We spent countless hours working on this play and I had many a sleepless night thinking about scenes and different ideas we could work with and to what extent we wanted to negotiate with Gogol, where we wanted to use Meyerhold, etc. There were ten thousand decisions that went into the production – lighting, sounds, acting, dancing, organization of bodies on stage, the body as a prop, crowd movement, interplay between the audience and the actors, silent scenes, trying to bring about the duality of heart-felt laughter and absurdity partnered with a sad and deep emptiness. There were so many obstacles we had to overcome. We all really poured everything we had into it and I am extremely proud.” Pat Kearns ’11
“Having never acted in a production before, to me, being able to participate on stage in Revisor was an exciting challenge. I learned a great deal about theater, teamwork, and the creative process while working on the play. Most importantly, I found the process invaluable to my Russian language skills, as I was determined to speak each line accurately and with the right inflection, as well as my knowledge of a play and characters that are still essential to Russian culture today.” Kim Ferington ’11
“I definitely felt challenged, but engaging in the acting process with the help of my fellow peers and Professor Duzs made the entire experience remarkable because I learned that there is no such thing as the IMPOSSIBLE.” Nina Ioannidou ’11
[youtube_sc url=”xLjsu5M0Si0″]
[youtube_sc url=”7z7h1bJ80D8″]
|
