Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 16, 2011)
¿±The Clackamas Print Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011 aced@clackamas.edu ArtQ O U R TOW N: Iconic play comes to Clackamas By Mandie Gavitt Arts & Culture Editor “Our Town” is a play that thrives on its simplicity and genuine relation ship with the audience in attendance. Set in the early 20th Century, ”Our Town” tells the story of a small town as it begins to adapt to a changing world. The story focuses mostly on the relationships of the people who reside in the small to w n o f Grovers Corners, N .H ., in particular the rela tionship between Emily Webb and George Gibbs, the two main charac ters of the play, written by Thornton Wilder. The story is narrated by a character entitled simply Stage Manager, who is able* to break the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience. The Stage Manager not; only plays sev eral roles in the, show, he also helps to inform the audience o f what is happening in thé play.- The scenery; is entirely minimal,! with only ^à. few tables, laddèrs^and benches. Instead of using props, the actors pantomime the objects they are interacting with. The story itself is simple, which means that those attending the play can instead focus on the acting. The actors are solely what make the play. As always the college theatre program has an excellent cast. .‘‘They are the bright shiniest thing in the galaxy,” said Director David Smith-English. The Stage Manager played by Michael Mitchell, did an excellent job of engaging the audience and telling the story in a way that piade the. play feel relevant and Athena Folk, who played M rs.Sdam es, provided m ueh comedy relief. Emily Webb played by Shannon O ’Shaughnessy was the sweetest character of the whole play. I found her innocence and naivety to be very refreshing and heart-warming. O ’Shaughnessy seemed to approach the character with a child-like inno cence who steals the show away. The play follows Emily Webb and George Gibbs as they go from high school sweethearts to husband and wife. The audience gets to be in on the intimate details o f now the pair progresses from being two kids-growing up in the same small town to lovers. The story begins with them as students at night talking from their adjacent second story bed room window. This is done with each standing onladders to represent the houses locations to each other. In a later scene, after a few years in the story, the lovers are having a. date at the small ice cream shop, where Stage Manager takes on tne role of the owner; of the shop. While helping themselves to milkshakes, the two discuss , the possibility of liking each other enough to get married in the future. This preludes the wedding scène where both are shown to have doubts but with help thèy manage to keep their cold feet under control and wed by the preacher w h o is played ónce again by the Stage Manager, z Thè wedding scene is qtfite ador able. Those in attendance for the -wedding are not necessarily the most respectful and make the scene humor-; ous. Mrs. Soajnes loudly tells anyone who'will listen about how she thinks’ the wedding is one of the nicest she* has seen. Because -I hate to spoil endings I will not say what happens in the final act. W hat I will say is, that, with a happy and whimsical feel, the play moves on and acts one and two quick ly disappear. W ith superb acting and a genuine spirit, this play will break y o u r h e a r t.— ----------- — •— As is to be expected, the theater department is once again putting on a must se,e show. Tickets are $8 . for students and you can catch this unfor gettable and Utterly charming, show Thursday through Sunday until Nov.- 20. Emily Webb (Shannon O ’Shaughnessy) and George Gibbs (Michael Lissman) talk with Mr. Webb (Sam Munger) a t their wedding in ‘Our Town. The play, present ed byC C C ’s Théâtre Arts Department, runs untilNov. 20, Thursday-Saturday at 7:30pm in the Osterman Theatre located in Niemeyer Center. ‘Immortals’ attempts to disguise lacking story with striking visuals By James Duncan earlier in the movie. Some of the most impor tant moments feel silly and so over the top with testosterone that the actors were about to start leaking it from their ears. It is hard to take From Tarsem Singh, the director who something seriously when, bam bam, every brought you the dark and mind bending other, bam bam, word is, bam bam, broken movie “The Cell,* comes a new and “exciting up, bam bam, by an annoying sound effect. movie for the masses, “Immortals.” Filled with- Repetition is a theme in “Immortals.” brutal fight scenes, love, tragedy and all things The visual effects are the only thing that a Greek epic should contain, it wows its view made this movie watchable: stunning views ers with spectacular effects and very little else. of ‘Greek’ landscapes and excellently detailed The striking visual effects do very little to cover fight scenes. Most over-the-top action mov- up the terrible story and the blatant attempt to ies often seem to throw logic to the wind and cash in on movies like “Clash of the Titans,” people do insane fight moves that make histo “Troy” and “300.” rians and people wno read, shake their heads The acting of Luke Evans and Henry Cavill and laugh. is laughable throughout most of *the movie. This movie has one-upped most. The char Mickey Rourke isnt at his best but he makes a acters fight like they are in a bad kung fu movie good bad guy. Even the most dramatic scenes more than that they are ancient Greek soldiers pf the movie are completely overshadowed by but over everything else heads roll all the the terrible acting and juvenile writing., time. This is another point in the movie that “Immortals” follows the adventure o f peas feels like someone ran out of ideas really fast, ant hero Theseus (Henry Cavill) and his adven because everyone’s head pops off constantly in tures seeking the Epirus Bow to stop the evil slow motion no less. More heads roll in this plans o f King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke). The movie than in the French Revolution. The last movie is regularly seasoned with a small selec and maybe most annoying part o f the whole tion of Greek gods including or rather limited movie was the excessive use of slow motion. to Poseidon (Kellan Lutz), Zeus (Luke Evans), Yes, we get it. “300” happened, it was good. Athena (Isabel Lucas), Aries (Daniel Sharman) Now give it up, you are not going to do it bet and a pinch of Helios (Peter Stebbings) and ter, let alone do it well! Heracles (Steve Byers). The only interesting Over all, this movie is bad, really bad. If you fights in the whole movie are the ones that the are into testosterone fueled heaa chop fests, gods are involved in and those take up a very this iust might be your movie, but if you care short amount of the total run time. at all for story or even a little about the char For a film thats trailers focused on all of the acters, that won’t happen. “Immortals” should action it had, a great deal of rambling dialog be getting one of the lowest ratings possible that rarely seemed to matter or impact the but Because the CGI is ‘just so perty^I give this overall tone of the movie. In places it felt like movie a two out of five. the writers ran out of ideas for dialog so they P.S. The ending sets the movie up for a would just have the character repeat a line from sequel! Bam bam! Design Editor
