Corthurnus brings classic literature to life

For those of us who haven’t had the chance to read all of the world’s greatest literary works, three members of Geneseo’s theatre club Cothurnus have a solution. The group’s performance of the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s “All The Great Books (Abridged)” was on Sept. 19 and Saturday Sept. 20 at the South Hall Quad Amphitheatre. It summarized 83 classic stories in less than two hours. The show, sponsored by the Educational Theatre Workshop, followed a Western literature professor portrayed by senior Taylor Walders attempting to teach a remedial class for students who failed his course. The audience acted as the “students” throughout this interactive show. Alongside the professor was a goofy teaching assistant played by junior Jeremy Jackson and an aggressive physical education teacher played by senior Jacob Stewart.

The performance was extremely dynamic, as it covered many dense works in such a short amount of time. The show covered literary works such as The Iliad and The Odyssey, Don Quixote, Ulysses, Three Musketeers and War and Peace—to name a few.

Each summary varied in length and method of portrayal. One segment that particularly stood out was the summarization of works by Jane Austin, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. The actors pulled an unsuspecting member from the audience and had him act as the “bachelor” of a dating show, with each actor portraying the authors as “bachelorettes.”

The fast-paced show had characters in constant movement, changing into ridiculous costumes and acting in near-caricatures. The actors’ effortless delivery of such a huge amount of material was extremely impressive. There was even a “midterm” during the intermission, during which everyone had to write down their favorite book, which the actors joked about in the second act.

Walders and Stewart formed the idea after experiencing a student performance of “The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged).” The three students then took it upon themselves to perform “All The Great Works (Abridged),” rehearsing on their own time over the past few weeks.

Jackson said that the show “lends itself to stuff going wrong—it makes us seem almost more silly and fun.” There were moments in the show where it was hard to tell what was rehearsed and what was improv, or spur of the moment, which made it feel even more energetic and lively.

Punctuated with scenes of sword fights, battles and heated arguments between the characters, the show was certainly over the top. The humor was raunchy—at times bordering on bad taste—but it also gave an edgier spin to a script that could have easily been corny.

The jokes were mostly witty plays on words and sophisticated literary quips. That’s what makes the educational theatre workshops so unique: the balance between scholarly and slapstick humor.

Guest choreographer teaches energetic stiletto dance routine

The Identical is 107 minutes of a complex storyline that pulls in an impressive bounty of both universal and cultural themes, yet delivers no substantial exploration of any of them. Played by Blake Rayne, protagonist Ryan Wade is given up as an infant to a preacher––played by Ray Liotta––and his infertile wife during the Great Depression in an act of both hard necessity and spiritual selflessness.

Wade’s identical twin Drexel Hemsley––also played by Rayne––grows up to be a famous rock artist in the genre’s infancy. His fame casts an unrelenting shadow over Wade’s own musical career as a Drexel Hemsley impersonator while neither character is aware that they have a brother. Wade’s adoptive father disapproves of his musicianship.

The conflicts in the film are fickle and uncertain. From the start, Wade struggles with love, greed, racist law enforcement, black culture and problems within the growing rock n’ roll culture. Thrown into this overwhelming mix are familial conflicts, spiritual tradition and introspection––all in the first 30 minutes.

With the same reckless haste in which they are introduced, these concepts pointlessly end as mere scattershot surrounding a relatively boring conflict: Wade failing to find his way in an industry already conquered by his lost twin.

Wade also struggles with the predictable conflict of getting his dream girl Jenny, played by Erin Cottrell. Like every other woman in the film, Jenny is an utterly static and flat character whose agency obediently lies in Wade’s hands.

Jenny is the cause for director Dustin Marcellino’s failure of the Bechdel test. To pass this “test,” a film must have at least two female characters––each of who must speak to each other at least once––and it must be about something other than a man. The only moment when the film comes close to passing is one line shared between Reece Wade and Helen Hemsley concerning Wade as an infant.

Seth Green’s character Dino reads like an aborted attempt by Marcellino to put comic relief into an early draft. Dino’s one or two out-of-place jokes considered, no audience would notice if he were cut even though the apparition of Green’s weasel face does at times pass for comedy.

The acting offers little redemption for the film. Rayne’s performance as a rock star is not believable as either Wade or Hemsley. As a typecast actor, Liotta’s performance is predictable at worst and par at best. Ashley Judd, Erin Cottrell and Amanda Crew prove that they are excellent at crying, smiling and dying.

The Identical is presented as a PG family film, which for some might allow it some slack in terms of cinematic quality. Essentially, it just has to keep people less bored for an hour and thirty minutes. Perhaps Marcellino thought a movie about music would accomplish this easily enough. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.

New York-based artists present contrasting mixed media

The Lockhart Gallery hosted its first exhibit of the semester titled “Aligned Works” on Wednesday Sept. 3. The exhibit displays the work of New York City-based artists Jill B. Levine and Lindsay Walt.Though not a collaborative exhibition, “Aligned Works” touts the similarities in inspiration and color between the artists’ works while still showing the differences in technique, media and style. While Walt’s abstract pieces are executed primarily in oil or watercolor on canvas, Levine’s are a series of similar, totem-inspired Styrofoam sculptures with varying patterns and colors. In her artist’s statement, Walt describes her affinity for “decorative arts, especially weaving and ceramics, both of which [she] studied.” Her works are delicate and intricate but her use of saturated, complementary colors keep them from getting lost among Levine’s sculptural and dynamic works. One piece entitled “Borrowing Time,” is especially striking, primarily because it is Walt’s largest featured work. A deep blood orange meets midway through the canvas with a light sky blue. Where the colors overlap, there are intricate brush strokes in blue that give the effect of small strings of beads. Levine’s statement describes her exploration of “the territory between painting and sculpture,” which is present in her bold, wall-mounted works. Levine incorporated her affinity for pre-Colombian art as well as Mexican ceramics, codices, totems and serapes. One particularly eye-catching piece is “Ciento Azul.” The piece features bold blocks of color that parallel those of a desert sky painted beneath bold, graphic lines of black in intricate patterns. Although the artists were not present at the opening, director of galleries Cynthia Hawkins was able to give some insight to the creative process behind the works. “Levine was very involved with Mayan iconography, but she was also a painter for a long time; you can see how well she uses color and her development of these shapes,” she said. “She doesn’t really rely completely on the original kinds of Mayan and Incan drawing or forms, but mixes them up with other things.” “[Walt] was saying some of her watercolors develop over quite a while,” Hawkins added. “She puts the paint on and then she washes it off, so it’s this sort of stain that builds up ... In order for that to happen, you have to be very physical with the canvas.” The technique behind these pieces is what makes them truly unique. The works balance each other nicely; the soothing tones of Walt’s work pair beautifully with the vividness of Levine’s. Jill Levine and Lindsay Walt’s “Aligned Works” will be on display until Oct. 9 at the Lockhart Gallery.