The Ohio State Theater Department’s first performance of Fay and Michael Kanin’s “Rashomon” begins tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. in the Mount Hall Studio Theater.
The play, directed by assistant theater professor Maureen Ryan, is set amid 11th century Japan and is based upon the dramatic stories of Ryunosuke Akutagawa.
The play begins with the murder of a man followed by the rape of his wife. It then flashes through contradicting testimony given in court by the crimes’ witnesses, Ryan said.
Sophomore Tyler Seiple plays the Priest who attempts to decipher truth from the three different eyewitness accounts of the crime.
The cast has been rehearsing for around a month, averaging 25 hours a week in preparation for the play’s OSU debut, Seiple said.
Los Angeles native Tanya McBride is a first-year student in the Masters of Fine Arts in Acting program at OSU. She plays the Samurai’s wife in the production.
“She’s not one character, it’s four,” McBride said.
She said the play shows four different accounts of the same story. This made performing the roles of the Samurai, the Bandit and the Samurai’s wife challenging since they have four distinctly different performances of the same role.
“The most interesting thing about the story is that you don’t know which story is true, it’s up to the audience to decide which story, if any, is true,” said first-year MFA student Adrian Brown who plays the Bandit.
Both Brown and McBride said they are tired of rehearsing and are looking forward to performing for a live audience.
Performances of “Rashomon” run from Nov. 18-25 at the 80-seat Mount Hall Studio Theater, located in Mount Hall on West Campus.
Dates and times of scheduled performances are available on the OSU theater department Web site at www.the.ohio-state.edu or the theater box office at (614) 292-2295.
Tickets are available from the box office located in the Drake Performance and Event Center or from any Ticketmaster outlet.
