University students donning 1940s Hollywood glam will spotlight their acting capabilities next week in a reflective play on moral integrity.
The play, a revival of talented playwright Clifford Odet’s “The Big Knife,” explores Hollywood fame circa 1949 and the toll it takes on an accomplished star’s soul. The play dangerously flirts with Odet’s bitterness toward his own life in Los Angeles during this time when he coined the term “urge to sin,” which he dutifully lived up to with alcohol abuse and prostitutes, director and University theater graduate student Steve Wehmeier said.
“The tension is palpable between his autobiography and the play,” said Wehmeier, who has starred in nearly 100 plays.
“The Big Knife” represents his second attempt as a director.
The play dives into murky waters, as many Hollywood insiders tend to do, when pitfalls of the lucrative, glitzy industry manifest: infidelity, blackmail and manslaughter, all taboo issues for the era. During this era, MGM controlled essentially all Hollywood studios, actors and directors; everyone wanted out.
The 12-member student cast began preparing before winter break, but the rehearsal road has not been easy.
“Tuning them into the era was very difficult,” Wehmeier said. “1949 was very different than 2007.”
The student actors had to learn to live with the jarring “paranoia, anxiety of the national conscience” prevalent after World War II, Wehmeier said, a sentiment mixed with the ascendance of communism and consumerism.
Elegant costumes and a bold setting encapsulate the high style of the era, he said.
The varied characters, which include a ruthless studio boss, a poor boy rising to stardom and a powerful gossip columnist, each will raise a question of morality within students, Wehmeier said.
“It will connect with a lot of people,” he said. “What is your price? I think this play really gets down to those questions.”
[email protected]