With the opening of the musical “Bat Boy” last term, University Theatre vibrated the walls of Villard Hall@@http://www.thingstodoineugeneor.com/details-E0-001-042986892-5@2011110520/Bat_Boy_the_Musical_Eugene/@@ with rock music and shocked many with stage blood and more. But the theater department promises even more surprising shows in this year’s winter and spring terms.
“Awake and Sing,” a drama by American playwright Clifford Odets@@http://pages.uoregon.edu/theatre/@@, debuting Jan. 26, is an enticing story about a Jewish family in the ’30s that has trouble making ends meet. The Bergers, a lower-middle-class family living in the Bronx, are a miserable lot. The story revolves around how the family handles both social and economic worry.
“The Crucible,” a familiar classic by Arthur Miller, opens March 8.@@same link@@ This story is the dramatization of the witch trials in Salem that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during 1692 and 1693@@http://www.witchcraftandwitches.com/trials_salem.html@@. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of McCarthyism, when the U.S. government blacklisted accused communists.
Department head John Schmor@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=staff&d=person&b=name&s=John+Schmor@@ hopes that there will be a similar interest among students as there was in “Bat Boy.”
“These two shows are in a more intimate setting,” he says. “You get closer to the actors, and you get a better feel for the subtleties between the two plays.”
But the department isn’t going to stop with just these two dramatic plots.
Coming up in the spring term are two more that will rock the crowd like “Bat Boy” did.
“Arabian Nights,” directed by new faculty member Michael Najjar, opens April 20 in Robinson Theatre. It is based on the collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age, “but this time with someone who actually knows Arabic and the culture,” Schmor said.@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=staff&d=person&b=name&s=Michael+Najjar@@
The theater department ends the season with a play called “I Ain’t Yo’ Uncle,” @@same link@@which is hailed by The New York Times as a “lively but erratic dissection of the (Harriet Beecher) Stowe classic.” @@http://theater.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?pagewanted=print&res=9C0DE7DB1139F936A15752C1A963958260@@The play is a subversive take on “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” but includes current political, racial and pop-culture politics. It opens May 24 in Hope Theatre.
Tickets to each play are free to all University students who come with a student ID card to get their hand stamped before entering the theater.