Perfectly coinciding with Valentine’s Day week, the Theatre Department’s performances of the one-act play “Big Love” took audiences through a journey of love in all its different forms. Last Wednesday through Sunday, the show filled JMac’s Whitebox Theatre in more ways than one. Although featuring only a 14-person cast, the show was larger than life, tackling issues such as gender equality and rape while also highlighting the beauty of relationships between men and women.
The story is based on a Greek myth according to stage manager Wren Shuyler, a freshman theatre/German major from Littleton. It stars three sisters who are running away (with their 47 other sisters) from their 50 cousins who they are bound by a pact to marry. They seek solace in the home of a man named Piero, played by Evan Saul, a sophomore theatre major from Ft. Oglethorpe, Ga. who reluctantly offers his aid in attaining their freedom from these unwilling marriages, and his mother, played by Jerica Khosla, a senior theatre and French major from Pueblo, Colo., who takes in the women and treats them as her own. Throughout the story all the characters undergo a revelation through the situation they have been placed in and find a way to make themselves happy against the odds.
“It’s about what makes humans go, what makes them tick … and that’s love,” said Jack Henderson, a senior film major from Denver, who played Nikos in the show.
The three girls have very different perspectives toward love. Thyona, played by Alexis Robbins, a junior theatre and criminology major from Evergreen, Colo. has so much resentment toward the men they are bound to marry—and men in general—that she hatches a plan for all 50 sisters to kill their husbands on the wedding night. Both sisters Olympia, played by Ahren Victory, a sophomore theatre major from Colorado Springs, and Lydia, played by Olivia Van den Berg, a sophomore theatre and finance major from Orlando, Fla., agree. In one long, intense scene, Olympia and Thyona both carry out their plan but Lydia decides to embrace the feelings she has for her husband, Nikos. The show ends with the sisters reconciling their different paradigms on the relationships between men and women.
“The theme is that love trumps all, even though in a really flawed way it could go the exact opposite way, that love doesn’t always work out. And I think we find that in each of the different characters; they all go through a journey of each,” said Shuyler. “It deals with very prominent issues and themes that everyone can connect to.”
The small cast was what brought “Big Love” to life; although the content was intense enough to keep the audience interested, the convincing performances by each performer was really what riveted the attention of the packed-in audience. The Whitebox Theatre brought the audience, which was made up of students as well as general members of the Denver community, as close as possible to the actors and all of them took advantage of this intimate setting with their passionate performances.
Many of the actors were on stage for almost the entire hour and 15 minutes of the show and a great majority of the lines were mini monologues, with each character expressing his or her views on the topics of marriage, the opposite sex, their same sex or love in general. Each was coping with their own predispositions to the topics of love and lust; the actors portrayed these psychological journeys convincingly. To act with the level of emotion and vigor that these roles necessitated for over an hour must have been exhausting, but none of the actors showed it.
Henderson gives credit to their guest director from the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Alison Watrous.
“Seeing her perspective from the DCPA has been unbelievable[.…] She was super supportive and very driving,” said Henderson.
Through its exploration of how love impacts each person and its significance in everyone’s lives, “Big Love” was a poignant and thought-provoking show. It was made memorable by its cast dedicated and talented performers.
Coming up from the Theatre Department is “Dog Act,” a post-apocalyptic comedy running Feb. 27- March 9 in the Byron Theatre, “Gym Party,” an exploration of humans’ universal desire to win, running March 2-6, a staged reading of “Glengarry Glen Ross” on March 31 and the Senior Capstone Festival running April through May.
For more information visit the Theatre Program website or like their Facebook page.
