The Clackamas print., November 23, 1994, Page 4, Image 4

The Clackamas Print Page 4
Wednesday, Nov. 23,1994
FEATURE
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by Jocelyn Gauthier
Feature Editor
Tech class is hard at work
and almost finished with the set
for the December production of
“Ravenscroft.”
The class consists of only five
students and the teacher, Mark
Wubbold, but they are very open
to having more students in it.
Matt Russell, assistant director of
“Ravenscroft,” is taking the class,
and “would encourage anyone
who enjoys construction to join
the class Winter or Spring Term.”
“I’m a more creative person,”
Russell said, “and this is more
with “space” in the back.
The “space” is the “nonspe­
cific” generalized rest of the
house, according to Russell. The
author of the play used the word
labyrinth a lot, and this set reflects
that idea.
The characters stay on stage
through the whole play, with dia­
logue usually going on between
two characters and the rest sitting
in chairs in the “labyrinth.”
This shows that they are con­
stantly “in the consciousness of
the inspector,” Russell said.
The set will be painted com­
pletely black “to represent a con­
4 4------------------------------------
It gets really exciting when we're
close to finishing the set.
-Matt Russell A .
Ravenscroft actors rehearse on an unfinished set being built by Mark Wubbold's Tech
Class. The class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
construction...I did really bad in
shop class, so I didn’t really want
to take this class. At first it made
me nervous because of the power
tools. I’m getting used to it.”
After getting ideas from the
play director, Wubbold designs
the sets on computer, then tells the
class, step-by-step what to do.
“This particular play is set in
an early-century Victorian man­
sion,” Russell said. The directors
didn’t want a traditional box set,
so they are having a living room
fusing maze type of setting,” he
added.
“It gets really exciting when
we’re close to finishing the set,”
Russell said.
Again, Russell really encour­
ages anyone to join the class. “I
was apprehensive at first. I didn’t
think it was for me...but the
teacher will direct each student
toward their own goals. I want to
direct, so he’s teaching me light­
ing,design and the capabilities of
different theaters.”
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by Matt Russell
Contributing Writer
The man sits at his desk to
write a play. “Every play,” he
says, “is a labyrinth of motives...a
good play is an endlessly unfold­
ing mystery.” With this premise,
combined with his fascination for
the game “Clue” from his child­
hood, Don Nigro begins to write
hismystery-comedy,
“Ravenscroft,” inspired by the
“sub-genre of
mystery lit­
erature, the
English coun­
try
house
murder mys­
tery.”
“The
playwright is
the detective,”
Nigro points
out in his notes for the play. He
is searching for some kind of
truth, which is not easily found
and is often different from what
is expected.
As the play’s protagonist, In­
spector Ruffing probes into the
lives of the five women in this iso­
lated, haunted labyrinth (which is
really the mind, and the charac­
ters are part of his consciousness).
He finds that he is really investi­
gating himself and the dark se­
crets of his life.
Even names of characters
have meaning in this play. The
main character gets her name,
Raven, from Poe’s “bird of
death,” and Nigro credits Poe as
the “father of the detective story.”
As for Croft, it is “a small farm,
but it comes from old German
words...meaning to turn, bend,
twist.”
In addition to self-discovery,
“Ravenscroft” also explores the
theme of gender-conflict and the
lack of understanding men and
women have toward each other.
“The sense of
mystery,”
Nigro says,
“is always
connected
with the mys­
tery
of
woman.”
-Don Nigro This is a uni­
versal theme,
even though
the play itself is set in Europe
early in the century.
Despite all the complexities
of Nigro’s ideas and concepts for
this work, it plays like a Sherlock
Holmes story with lots of inter­
views and plot twists. The audi­
ence watches the mystery unfold,
trying to solve it as it goes along.
The key difference between
“Ravenscroft” and Sherlock
Holmes is the comic approach the
former takes to the old murder
mystery.
See related story on page 5.
4 4---------------------
Every play is a
labyrinth of
motives.
---------------------- 5 5
Patteson
The play's cast consists of five women and one man, Inspector Ruffing, who suspects