A POLE IN THE MIDDLE OF STAGE ONE

A round steel support column in the middle of Stage One – in the basement of Poulton Hall – challenged the creativity of directors and designers. It became a tree, a lamp-post, a sign-post, the center of a round ottoman, a double love-seat, etc.

An alumnus of the period joked that, “You can recognize directors from our era at GU, because they will always have some kind of an obstacle in the middle of their set.”

Despite the small playing area and the pole, the little theatre housed some grand productions. Gus Kaikonnen was a formidable Aztec king-god in THE ROYAL HUNT OF THE SUN. Brecht’s epic THE RISE AND FALL OF ARTURO UI was, well, mini-epic. But we installed screens above the seating areas, and slides created both scenery and Brechtian commentary on the action. Carousel projectors were new stage technology then, and we used the projection system for several other shows. For DEATH OF A SALESMAN, the tech team installed a laser (on loan from the Physics Department). The red beam was reflected in a pattern above the heads of the actors on a series of mirrors – an impenetrable ceiling over Willy Lohman (played by Nelson Smith). We were cautioned that a mishap could blind anyone who looked into the beam, so the laser projector and the mirrors were monumentally secured by the tech crew. I had wanted to make a floor out of hundreds of beer cans: Willy Lohman on a metal grid , but that didn’t happen.

The floor in Stage One became a very major scenic element, and it was re-designed and re-painted for each show. Student director Louis Scheeder went further, and for MARAT/SADE, removed all the maroon the draperies to reveal Poulton Hall’s barred windows in black cement walls.

For the musical MAN OF LA MANCHA, space was found somehow for a small orchestra. The audience entered Poulton by ascending an exterior fire-escape and then descending three stories down a darkened stairway. Straw was strewn on landings, and Don Quixote’s fellow prison inmates were seen by lantern light – lying about in chains. The rest of the cast was “asleep” as the audience arrived in Stage One. Philip Santucci, who played Don Quixote, went on to a European career in opera. Andrea Oram, who played opposite him as Aldonza, later taught drama and directed many plays and musicals at Georgetown Day School.

Stage One, in spite of its limitations, and because of them, was a simmering crucible of imaginative student creativity.

—
Donn B. Murphy, Ph.D.
President and Executive Director

The National Theatre
1321 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20004
03-524-1616
703-524-1919 Fax
dbm@nationaltheatre.org
http://www.nationaltheatre.org