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ARTS & CULTURE
College theater opens curtains once again
Live shows return after 20 months
STORY BY LIZZY MARINE
ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR
Clackamas Community College’s live
theater program returned to Niemeyer for
its first production in almost 20 months
with the show “Private Eyes,” written by
Steven Dietz and directed by Jim Eikrem.
The small cast of five kept the audience at
the edge of their seats while going through
the twists and turns of this “comedy of
suspicion,” as Eikrem would call it.
Opening night of “Private Eyes” was on
Nov. 18, and ran through Nov. 21. Prior to
the pandemic, the fall production would
perform for two weekends equalling nine
shows, but with COVID-19 restrictions, the
theater program made the hard decision
of reducing the number of performances
to one weekend with four shows. Along
with the decreased number of shows, the
audience was limited to 57 people, which is
about 1/4 of the theater’s capacity of 238.
Eikrem made a remark about the limited
audience size in relation to the past
showing of the fall production. “We had
to turn some people away to maintain
the COVID policy, and although we were
sorry about that, it was encouraging
to have sold out houses and know that
people really wanted to come back to live
theater!”
The department is in high hopes after
making its grand comeback with the fall
play. They are currently looking at their
schedule to see whether the numbers of
shows will increase in winter term.
The fall play was one that required
audience members to stay engaged to
understand the journey the characters.
The plot thickened with every new scene.
One of the actors, Traveler Gates, said, “I
would say audience members keep your
ears out for lines that are repeated.” The
production was set in a casting room,
restaurant and therapist’s office. The set,
which included a small table and chairs,
was straightforward yet used in a
way that gave the simple items
so much drama.
“Private Eyes” * had
many
well-written
monologues for the
male lead, Matthew.
Along with fabulous speeches, Jacob
Dreyer, who played the role of Matthew,
said to The Clackamas Print that his
favorite thing about being a part of this
production was “that I get to be insane.
And I love it. I get to go out like a crazy
whirlwind. Like I’m neurotic and crazy,
it’s great —; that’s my favorite, like Gene
Wilder, Bust get to go over the top.”
The cast was masked throughout the
entire play. Members used plastic see-
through masks for audience viewers to
get some normalcy while still upholding
to COVID-19 guidelines.
Many of the cast members mentioned
the masks being annoying and
uncomfortable, but Gates told The Print,
“Personally,’ I have gotten used to the
mask. I think it would be honestly a little
bit weird to go out in front of a bunch of
people without [the mask].”
Audience members were expected to
follow the common COVID-19 guidelines
of wearing a mask indoors and to
practicing social distancing.
Live theater on campus will return
again in winter term with a production
of “Red Herring” starting on Feb. 24.
“ /g e tto be insane,
and I love it.”
— Jacob Dreyer
PHOTOS BY JOSEPH LOHMOLDER
The Clackam as Print -
-------------------th e c la c k a m a s p r i q t . ç om
D e ce m b e r 2021