When Geoff Carr, a journalism instructor at NIC, heard what the NIC Theater Department had in store for this semester, he could not have been more thrilled at the perfection of it all.
“Once I sort of saw that the dates lined up and it was my favorite show, I was like, ‘I’m gonna audition.’”
Students and faculty packed the Boswell basement Monday and Tuesday night to audition for “The Misanthrope” (translation: The Cantankerous Lover), a 17th century comedy written by renowned playwright and so-called “French Shakespeare” Moliere.
The play was unique–yet not as highly regarded as it is now–for its time, as it focused more on its developed characters to highlight its satirical elements than it did on plot progression. Today, it is Moliere’s most famous work.
Carr will play the leading role of Alceste. Having owned four translations of the play already and having written a screenplay that makes various allusions to “The Misanthrope,” Carr said it was partly his journalistic tendencies that had him falling in love with the play in the first place.
“I’m all about objectivity and I’m not afraid to sort of voice my opinions, and this is really a play about people who don’t feel like they have to be artificial. They can be themselves and be honest.”
This will be Carr’s first performance for the NIC Theater Department. He also composed and performed a one-man show in which he played Steve Jobs, which premiered at NIC.
Carr is not the only experienced talent to grace the stage this April. Fellow NIC theater celebrities, including Patric Schwaab and Patrick O’Farrell (“The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later”) were cast as Acaste and Clitandre, respectively. Both actors were nominated as Irene Ryan’s candidates for their roles in “Laramie.”
Schwaab said the two are good friends and that played an important role in their casting.
“[Joe Jacoby] said, you know, when you cast Clitandre [and Acaste], you have to cast them as a duo,” Schwaab said. “You don’t pick one character for the one and one character for the other. They have to have good chemistry.”
Jacoby, theater instructor at NIC and director of “The Misanthrope,” said chemistry is a critical element of the casting process when he’s judging auditions to “get the energy you’re looking for onstage.”
The director is a self-professed fan of actor Tim Mooney, whose adaptation will be used for this performance. Mooney performed “Shakespeare’s Histories: Ten Epic Plays at a Breakneck Pace!” at NIC last semester to an audience so overflowing that guests sat on the sidelines, in between chairs and on the floor just inches away from Mooney’s performing area.
This semester’s play will be quite different from “The Shape of Things,” which premiered in the fall. Logan B. Anderson, who starred as Phillip in “The Shape of Things” and will play Oronte in “The Misanthrope,” said he will enjoy a lighter, more comedic tone to work with.
“There’s a lot more seriousness in that role [Phillip] than what’s to be desired here,” Anderson said.
Whereas “The Shape of Things” is more contemporary in terms of staging, plot structure and language, “The Misanthrope” will feature a more classic, simplistic style that highlights the characters and their developments throughout the play.
“They both have their challenges,” Jacoby said. “And they’re both such wonderful scripts that they demand that you rise to their own unique challenges.”
13 people were cast for “The Misanthrope.” Cast members will be required to invest hours of practice into the play over the next few months. To Carr, those hours of hard work are worth it to to act in his “favorite play, ever.”
“I love playing on the stage with talented people and that’s all it is at the end of the day, is a great time to have fun and play.”
“The Misanthrope” will premiere Thursday, April 23, 2015 and run through Saturday, April 25, 2015, from 7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
