{"id":3038,"date":"2016-11-03T07:40:57","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T11:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/?p=3038"},"modified":"2016-11-03T07:40:57","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T11:40:57","slug":"hecuba-representing-refugees-from-ancient-greece-to-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/2016\/11\/03\/hecuba-representing-refugees-from-ancient-greece-to-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Hecuba: Representing Refugees From Ancient Greece to Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY SHRUTI RAM – COPY CHIEF<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Next week DramaCentre will be running their fall production, Hecuba<\/em>, a Greek tragedy set in 424 BC. The play was originally written by Euripedes, the famous Greek tragedian, and will be directed by Tony Haigh.<\/p>\n

Junior Rachel Kent will be playing the titular character, Hecuba, returning to the stage after last fall\u2019s production, These Shining Lives<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHecuba is referred to as old, and she is in the context of the play, as she is about 50-60 years old, which was quite old in Ancient Greece,\u201d Kent explained of her character, \u201cSince she is way older than me, we worked a lot on getting into character for someone that age. She used to be a queen but is now a captive slave in her own land. She had 50 children, and they have all died. She has been through a lot and it has been interesting trying to play the character in an emotional way and portraying without being melodramatic. I have been working on getting into character as I cannot rely on emotional memory to draw on for those feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n

DramaCentre is also taking a unique approach with the production, by drawing parallels between Hecuba<\/em> and the Syrian refugee crisis.<\/p>\n

Recently, Danville welcomed a refugee family into the community, and various Centre organizations are coming together to support them by helping with general fundraising, food donations, bathroom supplies, and transportation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really excited about representing such a relevant story,\u201d Kent said, \u201cWe will have donation boxes for the recently resettled refugee family in Danville [every night] during the show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senior Chandler Garland was asked to write a prologue specifically for Centre\u2019s production of Hecuba.<\/p>\n

\u201cChandler asked [the actors] to bring a refugee\u2019s personal account from any point in history,\u201d Kent said, \u201cIn the prologue, some of the actors are reading these personal accounts, and the stories are working backwards from present-day Syrian refugees to those from Ancient Greece.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe experience [of working on the show] has been introspective,\u201d says stage manager Tory Parker \u201915, \u201cThe play centers on the idea that refugees have been with us as long as war has been with us, and the prologue really brings that idea home.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is Parker\u2019s second time stage-managing a Centre production. A recent graduate, she is currently working in Lexington, but returned to help Centre\u2019s Drama department when they were in need of an experienced stage manager.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always talk about giving back to Centre, so I really want to in any way that I can,\u201d Parker said, \u201cand theater was such a big part of my Centre experience, so this seemed like a good opportunity to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been cool to see all of the elements of the show build and come together,\u201d Parker added, \u201cI am the only one besides [Director] Tony Haigh who does. My favorite scenes are the ones where the chorus move and speak synergistically as a unit. It required a lot of practice and coordination.\u201d<\/p>\n

The set of the play, designed by Scenic and Lighting Designer, Matthew Hallock, is also a unique aspect of the play. It features strategically placed rubble, struts, slopes and long walkways, as well as a giant canvas tent structure that may be opened or closed. The scene also features many muted gray, tan, and white tones, and feels reminiscent of a refugee site even today, which is a deviation from a typical Greek tragedy set in Ancient Greece.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like the set because sometimes Greek plays can seem a little disconnected from the audience,\u201d Parker said, \u201cThe set does not seem like it\u2019s set in a specific time period and transcends time. It allows the audience to understand the story a little better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working on a play like Hecuba has put the refugee crisis in perspective for some cast and crew members.<\/p>\n

\u201cHecuba has been a journey that I think all of the cast and crew have grown from,\u201d senior Natalie Trammell, who is a part of the Hecuba chorus, said \u201cWe have had to put ourselves in a dark place, discussing the life and horrors that come with war and being a refugee, but from that we have learned so much about lives outside of our own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been active in politics and in CentrePeace,\u201d Kent said, \u201cIt\u2019s always something that I\u2019ve been active in but [working on this show] has honed in on the personal experience of what it would be like to be a refugee.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis show has given us as a cast and crew to make a difference and help those in need!\u201d Trammell said, \u201cWe even had a donation pool for Syrian Refugees and raised over $100 from the cast alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I speak for all of us when I say we are so excited to share our work with the audience and we hope they can learn as much from the story as we can!” Trammell added.<\/p>\n

Come see Hecuba November 9-12 at 8pm in Weisiger Theater.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY SHRUTI RAM – COPY CHIEF Next week DramaCentre will be running their fall production, Hecuba, a Greek tragedy set in 424 BC. The play was originally written by Euripedes, the famous Greek tragedian, and will be directed by Tony Haigh. Junior Rachel Kent will be playing the titular character, Hecuba, returning to the stage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3042,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-leisure","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}