By Aditya Rajpurohit
The fall play is a yearly tradition in BHS. Although it is often overlooked due to the much more prominent spring musical, the play is always brilliantly directed by Maria Ogren and John Matthiessen, and wonderfully acted out by students.
This year’s play, Dracula, was forced to be performed in a completely virtual setting and it will be available for viewing online on Friday at 7:30 p.m. Although this posed a significant challenge, the directors have been able to push through and deliver an experience that viewers won’t soon forget. Instead of seeing the actors perform on the stage, the dialogue and action of the play will be performed over a video of a Google Meet.
Ogren said that the symbols and warnings in the play bear a much closer resemblance to our current situation – being in the midst of a global pandemic – than it may at first seem.
In Dracula, the only character knowledgeable on the subject of vampires is Professor Van Helsing, but many townsfolk ignore his warnings. Ogren compares the townsfolk who ignore Van Helsing’s warnings to the people today who choose to denounce science and spread “the evil amongst us,” referring to misinformation on COVID-19.
“They need to see or read Dracula! It’s a story for our time,” she said.
As Ogren pointed out in our interview, “theater is very physical and movement-dependent.” Gesture and contact are very important in depicting a character or moment, so when an entire play is online, with all of the actors in completely different locations, it poses a unique challenge.
As a result of this limitation, the actors were forced to put even more power in their facial expressions and dialogue. Ogren said she is disappointed that the actors will never truly be able to connect on the physical level that they could in years past, but applauds the entire cast in its determination to “keep alive the spirit of performance”.
All of these restrictions have certainly made it harder for the actors, but it is arguably even more difficult for the directors, who are accustomed to providing students with clear stage directions and even acting scenes out in front of them as examples.
These nuances are lost when all the rehearsals are done on a screen, but the directors have employed some new tricks to help the actors.
One tactic that seemed to be the most effective was reversing roles periodically, such as having the actor who plays Dr. Quincy, a psychiatrist, switch over to playing Renfield, the doctor’s mental patient. This switch helped actors better understand how their characters fit in the context of the narrative and their relationships with other characters.
Junior Louis Brodsky, who plays the role of Dr. Quincy, said that one other technique the directors taught him was tapping his fingers on a desk for each syllable in order to keep the dialogue’s rhythm. He says that this technique has helped keep him from rushing his lines, a problem especially heightened in the virtual setting when it isn’t always easy to determine when he should speak his lines. This tactic has helped Brodsky contain his dialogue in a smooth tempo so that the scenes flow well.
With all of these restrictions, it certainly hasn’t been easy to put on this play, but it is clear that with a few key tactics and the readiness of the actors to put the effort in, this performance is sure to be a spectacular one.
Editor's note: Aditya Rajpurohit is a member of the cast of Dracula and plays the part of the infamous, namesake vampire.
