The Alabama Shakespeare Project brought the 16th century Elizabethan play “Galatea” by John Lyly to life in Smith Hall’s Grand Gallery on Friday night.
The play brought students, faculty and community members together to experience a public reading by students from across university disciplines.
As part of the project, graduate students and faculty in the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies conduct research on the rehearsal process, which lasts only four days before the production, and audience experience. This performance differs from a traditional performance, lacking a set and props, allowing the actors to focus solely on the verbal delivery of the lines. Each audience member completed a survey at the end of the show to help contribute to the ongoing research.
Austin Whitver, senior instructor of English, said “Galatea” is not usually a play performed publicly, so it was nice to see it in the oratorical context for which it was written. Whitver said the performance lacks the polish of a full production.
“But I really enjoy the roughness, because sometimes it means that they’re sort of discovering cool new things on stage. You can see the process happening in real time, which I think is really cool,” Whitver said.
“Galatea” is set in a small town which must sacrifice a virgin to appease the god Neptune. In order to save their daughters Galatea and Phillida, two fathers attempt to protect them by sending the girls into the woods dressed as men.
The trickster god Cupid pushes the two girls to fall for one another, each unaware that the other is not a man. The show is littered with comedy as the characters navigate the confusion and godly interventions of the small town.
“It’s both funny and subversive in really cool ways,” Whitver said. “I think when we think of theatre, we think of old theater, English theater, we just think of Shakespeare. And it’s so nice to see another author on stage.”
While the play isn’t written by Shakespeare, the language and style follows its Elizabethan roots. Ella Kate Patterson, a freshman studying psychology, enjoyed hearing the speaking style she’s been learning about in her English class this semester.
“The way that they’re pronouncing the words, we’ve looked at all the different translations from how it’s written into how it’s going to be spoken today,” Patterson said.
Patterson found the performance impressively polished despite the limited rehearsals. The actors used cue scripts on small scrolls that helped to ensure the rehearsal method wouldn’t take away from the enjoyment of the play.
The themes of gender, identity and sexual orientation are unorthodox for a play whose time period predates public discourse of such subject matter. The play ends with a compromise between the gods and the girls, offering to transform one of them into a man so they may be in love forever.
Amaya Weakley, a freshman studying news media and an actress in the role of Galatea, spoke to her experience with the Alabama Shakespeare Project. With such a fast turnaround, she was able to focus on her own character during the live performance without worrying about the many moving parts of a full production, lending a more authentic feel to Galatea and Phillida’s love.
“I love how we were able to do this show in a week and have such a quick turnaround and put on something great,” Weakley said. “And although we cut it down a little bit to make it shorter, I still think that it was super representative of its time period, the meaning of the show, I feel like it still has such a great purpose behind it, and I just am so proud of it.”
This year, the theme behind Alabama Shakespeare Project productions is the woods, featuring theatrical selections in which nature takes the stage. “Galatea” takes viewers into the woods and leaves them with a hopeful ending in which Galatea and Phillida are able to live in love.
The next Alabama Shakespeare Project selection is Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which will be performed in Smith Hall on April 10.
“I think the importance is to show that, I know it may sound cliche, but love always wins, and that no matter what, I think that it’s important to always come through for the people you love,” Weakley said.
