Hope College Theatre Department's production of Rose and the Rime will be performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC on April 17, 2008. Remounting our show and moving it to Washington DC will involve many people to make it a success. This blog will allow you to hear from faculty, cast, and crew members as they make their way through the next few weeks. Look for pictures and posts from people in all areas of our company!
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Hello everyone, I had the pleasure to attend festival as the KCACTF Region 1 (New England) critic. I thought I would share my review of Rose and the Rime with you. If you'd like to include it as a link on this blog, feel free.
Bruce
Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival 40
Terrace Theater
Thursday April 17th 7:30pm
Hope Brings Us Hope
Hope College Production Shines at the Kennedy Center
Funny, frightening, and fantastical, Rose and the Rime embodies everything that college theater should aim to be. Innocence, community, greed, hope, this allegorical fantasy tale about a young girl and her community frozen in time by the spell of the Rime Witch works on multiple levels, but mostly just works, as it did in last night’s performance presented by Hope College as part of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.
Rose (Rachel Wells) is a parentless young girl living with her kind Uncle Roger in the wintry Capra-esque Northern Michigan town of Radio Falls during the Radio Era. Think It’s a Wonderful Life’s Bedford Falls as a euphoric George Bailey runs giddily through town yelling “Merrrrry Christ-maaas everyone!” Radio Falls is a happy town of splendid, palpable innocence, snowballs, smiles, and ice cream. Swing music plays on the radio and everyone from the goofy mailman in the oversized hat and overcoat to hunched and spectacled old Granny Sade is ready with a smile and a wave for their precious little Rose. Everything’s just super-swell, except for one small detail; Radio Falls is under the spell of the dreaded Rime Witch, who has placed this community in a state of eternal winter, no flowers, no birds, no springtime, no….never.
Uncle Roger (Cody Masalkoski) is the kindhearted caretaker with the bum leg, whose smile conceals a family and community secret and the key to unlocking the witch’s spell. Following her 624th weekly birthday, Rose learns that the witch is responsible for her parents’ deaths, Uncle Roger’s leg, and most importantly the spell, which has frozen her community in time. Armed with a secret weapon, little Rose journeys through the frightful, frozen forest to avenge her parents’ deaths, and kills the witch, stealing her source of her power, a symbolic magical coin, in the process. With the spell broken Radio Falls is transformed into a summer paradise of bicycles, beach balls, and bathing suits. Think Beach Blanket Bingo complete with dorky teenagers, acoustic guitars, hot dogs, and sappy love songs. Everything is, once again, super-swell until a suddenly desperate Rose is forced to make a moral decision, which threatens to destroy her innocent summer paradise community forever.
Writer-Director Nathan Allen has created a magical, allegorical tale, which explores themes of community, innocence, corruption, and hope. One could trace a history of the twentieth century American economy in this tale. Radio Falls represents Any-town U.S.A. with the symbolic magical coin as the corruptive influence of money and greed on our society. Rose’s parents are destroyed by their lust for wealth much like Americans of the 1920’s, who paid dearly for their high life, over- spending, and irresponsible investment. Like Rose’s Radio Falls, America finally lifts herself up out of her frozen economic circumstances after a defeat over her evil enemies. The early sixties are a time of promise, happiness, and innocence once again, but it all melts away as history repeats itself, plunging us back into the abyss of corruption and recession during the 1970’s. In the play, however, Allen’s optimistic vision leaves us with the hope that we, or more accurately our children, may learn from the mistakes of the past.
The real magic is that Allen affectively communicates these serious themes in a thoroughly entertaining and genuinely funny production. Rachel Wells is delightful as the energetic and hopeful Rose. The experienced cast displays tremendous comic timing as when a charming, and shoeless Jimmy Southerland (Brandon Ruiter) trying to impress a now blossoming Rose, blurts, “Shoes? I … I wear shoes all the time.” Or when an enthusiastic teen breaks the forth wall by shouting, “Let’s Have a Bar-B-Q!”
Musical highlights include a sappy beach blanket love ballad complete with acoustic guitars and bongos as well as an inspired and inebriated “Lullaby and Goodnight” which the cast performed by blowing into bottles of booze. Scene Designers Richard Smith, Sarah Watkins, and Stephanie Gavin and lighting designer Michael Olson transformed the Terrace Theater into a magical, wintry snowscape complete with frozen stalactites, blowing snow, and icy washes of blue light. Costume designers Michelle Bombe and Amanda Spanstra’s creation of the ten foot long Rime Witch greatly enhanced the production.
The fragility of innocence, the power of community, the corruptive influence of money, each of these important themes is explored in Allen’s outstanding college production of Rose and the Rime. Will we learn from the past and move forward, or are we doomed to repeat history and remain frozen in time? Though we may fear the worst, there is always… Hope.
Bruce Sullivan
Bruce Sullivan a theater and film critic working out of the Boston area and is this year’s KCACTF Region 1 winner.
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