Inside Department of Theatre's "Storm Still" opening Sept. 24

September 21 2021
L-R McKinley Barr, Grace Cawley, Victoria Wolfe | Photo Todd Collins L-R McKinley Barr, Grace Cawley, Victoria Wolfe | Photo Todd Collins

This week, for the first time since 2020, the Department of Theatre welcomes live audiences back into the Babcock Theatre.

The season opens with “Storm Still” by Gab Reisman, and it promises to be a treat.

“This spirited, rollicking riff on Shakespeare brings the Bard to the backyard, where three sisters have reunited to sort out the mess their father left behind," the Department of Theatre describes.
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“In the aftermath of his gradual decline and death, they navigate through paperwork and piles of trash and treasure, entertaining themselves by revisiting an unusual childhood activity: acting out a fast and loose version of King Lear. As they move from scene to scene, swapping characters and costume pieces, the line between fact and fiction begins to blur; their old pastime takes on new significance, and all three find themselves reckoning with their grief, their resentment, and the roles they have been cast in—willingly or not.” 

The ensemble cast features Grace Cawley as Goneril, Victoria Wolfe as Regan, and McKinley Barr as Cordelia. We caught up with the trio, along with Stage Manager Max Erickson, to get the inside scoop.

“It was exciting and fun because everyone knows [King Lear] but now they are seeing it in an entirely different way, which I think is important,” Barr, a junior in the Actor Training Program (ATP), said.

“It’s really interesting the parts of ‘King Lear’ that are in the script,” Cawley, also an ATP junior, explained. “Each of the three sisters have different levels of how true to the text their speech is. In ‘King Lear,’ my character Goneril is an awful person – she’s a traitor, she’s very sneaky, stabs her family in the back...that’s very much not the case in ‘Storm Still’s’ Goneril. She’s much more of a caretaker and older sister. It’s been interesting finding where those departures are.” 

"If anything has shown us how powerful it is – this past year, not having connection and that live experience.  It is a communal art, and it is a human art, something that mirrors our own lives that we take our own experience from, we see ourselves in characters.”

A play within a play, as the cast often calls it, “Storm Still” requires each of the actors to find commonality and distinction between Shakespeare’s storytelling and Gab Reisman’s. An added challenge: not only do they each play a sister, but Lear’s supplementary characters as well.

Victoria Wolfe, an ATP senior, explains: “We all have like four different characters we play, and that has been the most fun. Finding how this one walks, or sits, or where they lead from...trying to figure out each different body you have to become was tough.”

When asked to describe their “sister,” adjectives flow easily from the actors. “Avoidant, but strong,” Wolfe said. Cawley chose “caregiver, peacemaker, eldest.” And finally, Barr describes Cordelia as “independent, the baby, spoiled.”

Another major element of "Storm Still" is the staging, a collaborative effort of massive proportions to create the feeling of an entire life left behind. With the guidance of Department of Theatre Props Master Arika Schockmel, the production team sourced what feels like a garage full of antiques and miscellany.

“It’s been a really fun and wild time to watch these three people play in what almost feels like a landfill sometimes – it’s this big heap of trash, and furniture, and boxes, and they are navigating it so well,” Max Erickson explained. “The stage management team calls itself the Storm Still Moving Co., because we have to move basically an entire house by the end of rehearsal.”

What is perhaps most striking about the show, especially to students of theatre, is its message of how play helps us process even our most challenging moments.

“One thing I find really beautiful about the script is that it is a ritual of grieving, a ritual of loss...trying to have a conversation with someone who’s gone,” Cawley said.

“They are grieving the loss of this turbulent father figure through theatre and play, which is one of the most powerful things about theatre, and especially storytelling. If anything has shown us how powerful it is – this past year, not having connection and that live experience.  It is a communal art, and it is a human art, something that mirrors our own lives that we take our own experience from, we see ourselves in characters.”

We welcome you back to the theatre.
See you there! 

STORM STILL 
by Gab Reisman 
Directed by Alexandra Harbold 

TICKETS HERE

Sep 24 @ 7:30 pm
Sep 26 @ 7:30 pm
Sep 26 @ 2:00 pm
Sep 30 @ 7:30 pm
Oct 1 @ 7:30 pm
Oct 2 @ 2:00 pm
Oct 2 @ 7:30 pm
Oct 3 @ 2:00 pm
Oct 3 @ 7:30 pm