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The fall play uncovers what rP n
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MANDY GOOD
A&E Editor
Think about the things that
you say when you are alone or
when there is someone around
that cannot understand you.
Now imagine if someone could
understand. Don’t you think
that it is kind of scary to think
of the things that they might
have heard you saying?
The Foreigner brings this
situation into perspective. The
play is set in Betty Meek’s Fish
ing Lodge Resort, Tilghman
County, Georgia, during the re
cent past.
There, Charlie Baker (the For
eigner), played by John
Renner, is put in a situation
where he does not want to be
talked to because he is very
shy. He gets flustered when
engaged in conversation and
many times finds that he has
nothing to say. He does not
want to be thought rude, so his
dear friend Froggy, played Erin
Elizabeth Adkission, who
brought him to the lodge as
sures him that she will fix ev
erything. She will make sure
that he will not be talked to and
not appear to be rude.
The plot then takes a twist :
Froggy tells the owner of the
lodge, Betty Meeks, played
Samantha Tennyson, that
Charlie is a foreigner and that
while staying at the lodge he is
not to be spoken to. The rea
soning of course is that he
feels bad that he can not un
derstand others and to spare
the feelings of Charlie it would
be easier if nobody talked to
him at all.
Nice work—Froggy solved
the
problem,
right?
Well...maybe not. Since Charlie
cannot understand any of them,
everyone feels that it’s okay to
confide in him or talk about
anything when he is in the
room. Charlie winds up hear
ing more than he should.
What 1 found to be the inter
esting part of the play was the
evolution of Charlie. Renner
does an amazing transformation
of character. Although Charlie
had intended to be isolated
while staying at the lodge, the
opposite happened. He found
that the others were very lonely
and that he provided them
company and since he could
not speak he was also a good
listener.
“I think that 1 am acquiring a
personality...yes it is as if ev
ery person hands me a piece of
it as they walk in the room,”
said Charlie, confiding in
Froggy. “We’re making one
another complete and alive,”
1 would go to the play again
to see the evolution of the char
acters. The characters in the
play are very developed and it
is obvious that there was a lot
of time put into the production.
SW
» öß
PHOTOS BY JENNY CHAVEZ / Clackamas
Top left: Staff Sgt. "Froggy" LeSueurfErin
Elizabeth Adkisson) shows Betty Meeks
(Samantha Tennyson) a spoon. Top right:
Emily Falkenstein as Catherine Simms.
Bottom left: Jeff Miller as Owen Musser.
Bottom center: Owen Musser (Jeff Miller)
gets ready to pour pop on Charlie Baker
(John Renner). Bottom right: John Renner
puts on his makeup before the play.
Performances of "The Foreigner" are scheduled 8p.n
Nov. 16-18 and Nov. 30-Dec. 2nd and at 2:30p.m. J
Nov. 19 and Dec 3rd in McLoughlin Hall Theater. A
mission is $7 for general, $4 for students, and freei
seniors with a reservation. For more information, ci
503-657-6958 ext. 2356.
Shadowing hands aid hearing impairs
Theater and ASL joint efforts to include the deaf communit
CORINNE RUPP
Staff Writer
The Foreigner, Clackamas’
Theater Department’s fall play,
will be experimenting with a
new way of sign language in
terpreting for the deaf commu
nity in the audience.
/
During the two Friday perfor
mances, second year American
Sign Language students will be
following the actors on stage,
“shadowing” individual char
acters and signing thé lines as
the actors shy them.
“We are not going to have
them on the side you know,
where you have to watch them
or the action,”, said Director
David Smith-English. “They’re
going to be [on stage] with the
performers.”
This joint project between the
Theater and ASL has been in
the works since last spring.
“We’re trying different
things,” said Glenda Edwards,
ASL instructor. “This is really
an experiment between the the
ater department and the sign
language class.”
Edwards sits on the Board of
the Northwest Theater of the
Deaf. She approached Smith-
English last year about the
possibility of collaborating on
projects together. Sjmith-En-
glish recognized the value of
the idea for his actors as well
as for the ASL students.
Both actors and signers
agree that this experiment is
challenging.
“It’s kind of nerve-wracking,
trying to translate all the
signs,” said ASL student
Andelain Powell. “But once we
got that down we were pretty
comfortable on stage.”
“It’s kind of weird at first,”
agreed Jeff Miller, one of the
actors. “All the sudden there’s
this extra person there.”
But despite the challenges of
working with so many people
on stage and learning new vo
cabulary, everyone involved
sees the experiment as a suc
cess.
“When it works right, it sort
of makes the character richer,”
said Smith-English.
This collaboration, hopefully
the first of many for the two
groups, helps bring two worlds
together at Clackamas that
might not otherwise meet. I
“Most of us feel like wej
part of the performance nod
said ASL student Powell.
Edwards understands the ill
portance of the play to h er AS
students as a learning tool.
“Taking the script ar
changing it from English!
ASL is really going to he
them,” she said. “If you stud
any foreign language, yfl
know that if you don’t use
you lose it.”
Besides being educations
“it’s pretty fun” said Powell
The two shadowed perfol
mances of The Foreigner w
be Nov. 17 and Dec. 1.