Skidding to a stop….

I have come to a full stop. Well, for the moment anyway….next week may be another story.

I had the honor to be asked by one of the most talented costume designers in our town to help her with “Enchanted April” the latest production for one of our local community theatre companies. We had such a great time together—shopping, planning, researching, cutting, sewing and finding all the details for this play set in 1923…(one of my favorite eras). Unlike the slap-it-together nature of high school theatre costumes, I loved the opportunity to work on details such as dying yards of dress silk to match hats we’d found, finishing seams, sewing sequins and beadwork, and having a larger budget. I had to sit for a photo portrait, and write a formal bio for the program. I got to do an illustration/portrait that was being “sketched” by the artist character in the play, and I got paid (!) for the work I did. The costumer (now a new friend), actors, directors, and production crew were all great to work with. The play was beautiful, well acted and professional. The audience audibly gasped in the second act when the curtain opened upon a visually stunning floral and vine covered Tuscan patio as part of an Italian castle. The costumes looked just as we had hoped, the actors were thrilled, and all was great fun. These are shots from a dress rehearsal (before the gorgeous set was done, unfortunately).

And yet…and yet. If given the choice, I prefer to work with high school students every time.

Our theatre director at the school likes to challenge the kids artistically and intellectually, and so she chose Brecht’s “Caucasian Chalk Circle” for our Spring production this year. Pithy stuff, this play. Brecht is studied in her classes, and so the students were excited about the choice. When done in its entirety, this play is a 3 hour epic with a cast of 75. However, we cut the play into an hour and a half—distilling the story down to a very simplified essence. We used black and white photography projections, a stark set, and costumes with a peasant feel. A cross-century and cross-cultural mix of Russian, Asian and whatever we could find on our zero budget—(which ended up being lots of curtains and tablecloths and fabric scraps…) It’s a play within a play about revolution and survival and love for a child.

This spring production was a rough ride in many ways. We had five weeks to put it all together, and an array of obstacles such as student obligations, scheduling difficulties, set building snafus and soundboard sabotage from an angry student who had been asked to leave the tech crew due to poor grades.

The weekend right before our week of dress rehearsals and performances, we had a school tragedy where a student was killed in a car accident. Many students on our cast and our tech director were friends with this boy and are still grieving terribly.

That same weekend, two bus loads of choir students were returning from a performance in Denver late at night, and one of the buses overturned on the freeway. We don’t have answers as to how or why yet—only that no drugs or alcohol were involved on the driver’s part. No one was killed, but five kids and our choir teacher were taken to the hospital, and one girl was seriously injured—her face badly lacerated from glass.

While grateful that everyone was alive, all the students involved were deeply affected by this accident and utterly reeling from the events of those two days. We had 15 cast and crew members who were involved in the bus accident and shaken to their core.

The play did go on, though—and the continuation of the production actually served as a great diversion for the kids. By our first performance on Thursday night, the cast and crew had pulled together and did a beautiful and powerful job.

The final night was an emotional sharing of appreciation between directors and students. Our theatre director spoke about each student and addressed all the brilliant and positive things that each individual had done. Then I told them that I was always overwhelmed and amazed by their talents and willingness to give and perform–and this time, in light of all that had gone on, I was so proud of them I could barely breathe.

The cast presented us with boxes they had made filled with thoughtful gifts pertinent to references in the play. Big, 6’4” Braden, one of the leads, stood with his arm around me and said with tears streaming down his face…”Ms. Kari, you are our rock. You make us look great, but more importantly, you listen to us and care about us and LOVE us. You are like our wise mom.

Make-up needed to be reapplied.

Braden, our narrator/troubadour

The Prince and the Ironshirts take over the city and kill the Governor. (Our own brand of costuming humor—the emblem on the Ironshirt “armor” is the shape of a clothing iron…heh.)

The Governor’s wife orders her favorite clothing to be packed up in the midst of chaos as they flee from the IronShirts and the city in uproar.

The cast composed their own musical score for the play—and when they weren’t characters on stage, they were playing instruments.

A few of the villagers contemplating what Braden is singing.

Grusha and Simon proclaim their love for one another

In her haste to pack her beautiful clothes and escape the IronShirts, the Governors wife left her child behind. Grusha finds him abandoned and picks him up and caresfor him. Through many hardships, homelessness and near starvation, Grusha raises the child as her own. In her desperation for a home for herself and the child, she marries a man, Yussup, who is about to die.

Yussep, who has really been faking it, suddenly wakes up after a long “near-death illness” once he hears the war is over. And now Grusha has to endure her marriage to him.

Simon, her one true love, comes home after the war to find Grusha married and is hurt and confused. The Governor’s Wife has also come out of hiding and found out that Grusha has her son. Because the child is the heir, the Governor’s Wife wants him back—and she takes Grusha to court.

Grusha pleads her case with Azdak. Everyone thinks Azdak is a drunken judge who can be bought off.

In actuality, Azdak is a wily judge who devises the test of the Chalk Circle. He suggests that the two mothers put the child in the middle of the circle—each mother grab an arm of the child, and the first one who pulls him from the circle shows her true capacity as a mother. Of course, Grusha—who cares about the child as her own and cannot stand to hurt the child— allows the Governor’s Wife to pull the child out of the circle. In this way, Azdak proves Grusha to be the fit mother and allows the child to stay with her. He also signs divorce papers between Grusha and the dreaded Yussep, which frees Grusha to now marry Simon. And that is the happy end of the story.

Originally we made a puppet to represent the child—but he only held up through rehearsals. When his head came off and his arm dropped off, we decided that it would be best if our diminutive puppeteer became the child and the puppet was retired. I do not have photos of this because it was decided the night before our first performance—but she did a very convincing job!

And so, dears and dahlinks…I must go collapse for a bit and recharge. There is much more to chatter on and on about—but it will have to wait for another day.

:)xo

Adagio