Word: raves
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...would never have thought that tragedy and techno would go hand in hand, but as director Martijn Hostetler '00 shows in his creation of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, perhaps the two worlds are not so dramatically different after all. Set in a post-apocalyptic rave, the title characters are not dressed in the expected and traditional 17th-century garb but in silver flare bell-bottoms, platform shoes, halter tops and body glitter thanks to the costume designing expertise of Valerie de Charette '02. While I'm sure that the scandlous sex scenes, glow sticks, extensive homoeroticism...
...Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida certainly makes a bold statement, although the gratuitus and raucous sex, drugs and profanity certainly do not bode well for what the world will be like if we were to ever survive the apocalyse and find each other again in some sort of groovy rave...
...Abominable Showman (a description he adored), a boss who scared the pants off this young man whom he had just hired to write the songs for Hello, Dolly! (starring Carol Channing, pictured with Merrick), entering his blood-red office for the first time. A jokester who used rave quotes by ordinary people (who had the same names as the seven Broadway critics of the day) to advertise a flop show of his in a full-page New York Times ad, a loving father, a ladies' man--the dictator who forced me to write Before the Parade Passes By overnight...
...most part, though, the directors' choices to do Shakespeare need no explanation beyond the excellence of the plays. "Why do many Shakespeares go up? [Because] he's a damn good playwright," said David Corlette '96, one of the designers of Trollius and Cressida's rave-style lighting. Director Martijn Hostetler '00 agreed, saying "I think people choose do to Shakespeare because he's a terrific writer. Many times during our rehearsal process we'll read over a certain passage a couple of times, and marvel at how wonderfully complex and expressive...
...stuffy productions. "I'd seen too many Shakespeare plays treating the text in this academic and really esoteric fashion that really inhibited the audience's experience," he said. He decided that Trollius deserved something entirely different. His concept is to set the text within a post-apocalyptic desert rave, an environment that he feels will underscore the pomp and vanity of many of the characters. For Hostetler, "there is no better way to present a text that is not well known than in a manner that is visceral and visually exciting...