Amherst putting on big show
By Casey Gillis on Oct. 24, 2007
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Amherst County High School theater director Patricia Chamberlin says she struggled all summer to pick out their first show of the season.
“I hadn’t found a play I liked,” she says. “I really wanted to enjoy the play because it’s something you work on for two months.”
She finally decided on Charles Mee’s “Big Love,” a modernized adaptation of a classical play by Aeschylus.
“It’s kind of a weird, different show,” she says. “I thought, ‘I’ve been here in Amherst for six years. They can handle something a little weird.’”
In the play, 50 women in Greece are being forced to marry their 50 cousins, so they flee the country by boat and end up in Italy.
Since it would be nearly impossible to stage the show with 100 characters, this tale focuses on three main girls and three main guys.
“It’s more intelligent than a lot of shows,” Chamberlin says. “It’s more than just entertainment.”
The play probes the differences between men and women, and the way they think about different issues, a lot of which is mined for laughs.
However, she says, “some of the stuff you’re laughing at, it’s not everyday kind of humor.”
The play opened last week, but has two more performances at 7:30 p.m. tonight and Saturday in Amherst County High School’s black box theater. Tickets are $5 each. For more information, call (434) 946-2898.
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