Last weekend in the CFA, the Theater Department opened its first mainstage production of the year, an ambitious new work reuniting famous operas with the plays on which they were initially based. “Countess/300,” adapted and directed by Theater Professor Gay Smith, is now in the ninth day of its first performance.
The unusually long show, which as of this morning had already run 204 continuous hours, presented the dramatic texts of 300 Beaumarchais plays that had inspired operas such as Rossini’s “Barber of Seville,” Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro,” Bizet’s “Carmen,” Wagner’s Ring Cycle, all 28 Verdi operas, The Who’s “Tommy,” The Beatles’ “Rubber Sole,” and the complete works of Ani DiFranco. The full list of sources will be printed once the first performance has ended.
The show follows the love life of Count Almaviva (Seth Cohen ’07) and Rosine (Jessica Phillippi ’05), the title character. Their romance begins in Seville, Spain, in the late 1760’s, and proceeds through Revolution Era Paris, Civil War Era Atlanta, and both World Wars (the first in Vienna, the second in London).
After the intermission, the action then takes us to Cairo at the height of the nuclear arms race, Crete during the Vietnam War, and the Carter Administration Lincoln Bedroom. More has happened to the couple—along with their rascally servants Figaro (Chris White ’06) and Suzanne (Ellen Gerdes ’05)—but the writer of this article passed out for several hours due to dehydration, and upon regaining consciousness hallucinated the second act of “Our Town.”
The writer then escaped the theater, which was in a state of lockdown, by pretending to be a member of the chorus and exiting through the stage and into the costume shop, where costume designer and theater Professor Leslie Weinberg smuggled her to freedom.
The lively cast performed ably, though the use of separate soloists sometimes divided the audience’s attention between actor, singer and the program’s translations of the lyrics. All the scenic elements came together beautifully, and the orchestra, led by musical director Angel Gil-Ordóñez, played beautifully and tirelessly. Inside sources say they were force-fed amphetamines, but others say that certain sections were administered electric shocks when they started to slip to the floor.
The title was intended to reflect not only the number of sources and the various stages of Countess Rosine’s life, but also the revolutionary thematic device of a 300-hour-long show. But through an unfortunate miscommunication with PIP Printing, all publicity for the production read “Countess/3” instead of “Countess/300,” suggesting the show to be much shorter than it actually was. Or rather, is.
“I figured the ‘300’ was just a typo,” an anonymous PIP employee said. “I never thought I’d wind up with blood on my hands.”
Sadly, blood was, in fact, spilled. Audience members who were unprepared for the full duration of the play—and thrown off by the earliness of the only intermission, which took place a mere two hours into the proceedings—were soon driven to the extremes of human depravity by mind-numbing hunger and fatigue.
While the audience at first banded together, sleeping in shifts and rationing what food they had, all alliances dissolved on the fourth day when two students and a Latin professor engaged in a bloody brawl over a concession-stand cookie the professor had secretly pocketed (the parties’ names have been withheld at the request of their families). The professor’s body has not yet been found, though authorities say they have halted search efforts until the end of the second act, on the grounds that their friend is in it and they promised they’d at least watch for that long.
This initial disruption set the trend, and others followed. During one of Figaro’s arias, the groans of an actor’s father, who was suffering from REM-rebound due to lack of sleep, prompted one theater professor to hush him irritably. The situation escalated, the professor reportedly threatening to confine the parent in a “doghouse,” according to witnesses.
Though 300 hours is, technically, 12-and-a-half days, Professor Smith said that it was only an approximation, and would probably run closer to 14 days. The original script had been significantly longer, but was trimmed down due to concerns regarding global deforestation. Regardless, Smith considers the finalized version to be a faithful rendition.
“Though these operas are world-renowned, the plays they’re derived from are largely overlooked, and considered inferior to the operas,” Smith said. “Most people assume it would be pointless to produce them on even a small scale, and those people are right. Wait, that’s not what I meant to say.”
Behind her, meanwhile, audience and chorus members attempted to crawl up the stairs to the drinking fountain, only to be stopped by the pile of unconscious bodies that had already amassed.
The Theater Department’s only statement regarding the chaos still going on inside the CFA was that the show cannot be stopped, nor the audience released, because the students who submitted that proposal do not have enough experience within the department.
The actors faired the best in the face of these mortal perils, absorbed in their character, craft and vocal technique. The greatest toll was taken on those whose roles ended early in the performance and thus had to remain onstage without any artistic distraction from starvation and psychosis. Chris Kaminstein ’05 (Bartholo) survived only by chewing off his right leg and eating it. He was unavailable for comment as of press time.
COUNTESS/300 adapted and translated from Beaumarchais by director Gay Smith; with music by Rossini, Mozart and Milhaud et al; music director Angel Gil-Ordóñez; opera instructor Priscilla Gale; choreography by Patricia Beaman; scenic design by Gary M. English; costume design by Leslie Weinberg; lighting design by John Carr; stage manager Jessie Smith ’06; assistant scenic design by Tina Louise Jones; assistant director Chris Kaminstein ’05.
WITH: Norah Andrews ’07 (SOLOIST), Natalie Clark ’04 (CHORUS), Seth Cohen ’07 (COUNT), Megan Diamondstein ’06 (CHERUBINO), Halley Feiffer ’07 (CHORUS), Eliot Fisher ’05 (LEON), Nyasha Foy ’06 (CHORUS), Josh Garrett ’04 (GARDENER), Ellen Gerdes ’05 (SUZANNE), Lincoln Grismer ’07 (CHORUS), Scott Horowitz ’07 (JUSTICE OF THE PEACE), Dan Jones GRAD (CHORUS), Chris Kaminstein ’05 (BARTHOLO), Rachel Lerner ’06 (SOLOIST), Greg Malen ’07 (BEGEARSS), Andrea Mayfield ’05 (CHORUS), Jessica Phillippi ’05 (COUNTESS), Jacob Robinson ’04 (POLICEMAN, CHORUS), Rachel Rowland ’05 (FANCHETTE), Jillian Weinberger ’07 (FLORESTINE), Chris White ’06 (FIGARO), and Kingston Hong Wong ’06 (SOLOIST).
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