Actors normally don’t take snapshots of each other during
rehearsal, but for UCLA dorm residents acting in English Professor
Frederick Burwick’s theatrical production, every moment of
this rare experience must be captured. The students are more
tourist group than acting troupe.
Burwick, a professor-in-residence in Hedrick Hall for the past
six years, has directed a play starring dorm residents each year.
These students major in anything but theater. Sponsored by the
Office of Residential Life, this year’s production of
Romantic writer Elizabeth Inchbald’s “Animal
Magnetism” makes its debut Friday night in the Northwest
Campus Auditorium.
“It doesn’t matter if you are in the theater arts or
not; you get out and read the lines. Can you take a cue? Can you
sing? Can you dance? What can you do?” said Burwick.
“Auditions are very decisive. One often thinks that the scary
moment for a director is opening night. The scary moment is when
you are casting, because you don’t have much evidence to go
on. You have to find the right person for the right role because
you can’t go back.”
With a cast of students with majors ranging from physiological
science to anthropology, the play exudes an air of amateur
excitement and naïveté. While some actors have had
previous theater experience, for many, this is their first and
perhaps only chance to work on a full production. Burwick posted
flyers during fall quarter for auditions, and in typical dorm-like
fashion, word quickly spread.
“I found out about it through a friend, and she had
Professor Burwick for an English class. She lived down the hall
from me, and (said), “˜You play flute, don’t you? My
professor is looking for a flute player,'” said
Jong-Ling Wu, a second-year psychology student who played the flute
in Burwick’s production of “Death’s Jest
Book” last year and plays keyboard and flute in the period
pieces in “Animal Magnetism.”
An expert in Romantic literature, Burwick is interested in
reviving plays like “Animal Magnetism.”
“For a long time, the notion was that history has
undergone such radical changes from the 19th and 20th century,
(that) a lot of this earlier stuff is not really possible to
resurrect (and) that (romantic plays are) so dated and so strange
that it just doesn’t work on the modern stage,” Burwick
said. “If you ask even grad students in literature to name an
important playwright between Sheridan and Shaw, they’ll go,
“˜Umm … umm … umm.’ They don’t know that
middle period of drama.”
Kristin Crawford, a second-year English student who plays
protagonist Constance, sees the play’s lack of exposure as a
blessing in disguise and expects the audience to be genuinely
intrigued.
“(The play) is a really good opportunity for us because we
are performing something that essentially has never been performed
since the 1800s,” Crawford said. “Besides that,
it’s something between Shakespeare and modern language; the
language really isn’t that difficult. You really get the flow
of it.”
A classic farce with a plot reminiscent of today’s
romantic comedies, “Animal Magnetism” is set in Paris
at the end of the 18th century. Constance, a naive heiress confined
to her home for much of her life, falls in love with the first man
she sees, the Marquis de Lancy (third-year physiological science
and Spanish student Stephen Pu). To be with him, she must dissuade
the advances of her ward, the old, bumbling Dr. Embrouillant
(third-year cognitive science student Gregg Cragg).
Constance’s maid, Lisette (fourth-year anthropology student
Rebecca Wyrostek), and Dr. Mystery (second-year neuroscience
student Daniel Zamani) help her dupe the doctor into believing he
is under the powers of animal magnetism.
The play’s light-hearted mood is reflected in the
actors’ demeanor during rehearsal. Though the opening of the
play looms, the actors seem devoid of last-minute jitters. When
Zamani repeatedly fumbles his lines, the cast breaks up laughing,
and eventually helps him through it. Cragg appears on stage in full
costume, and someone points out he should take his socks off before
putting on tights and remove the labels from his pants. Cragg, of
course, responds with a shrug.
Burwick’s production, however, is not without ambition.
Despite the casual aura of rehearsal, the cast will take its
performance on the road to CSU Long Beach and Scripps College. Last
year, Burwick and his actors were invited by the North American
Society for the Study of Romanticism to perform
“Death’s Jest Book” in New York.
“I just saw the flier for (the auditions), and I thought,
“˜Oh, I never got to do theater in high school, so I’ll
take my chance now,'” said Vicki Leung, a second-year
undeclared student and prop and stage manager. “It brought me
to New York. You never know what things can bring you.”