Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 4, 1994 TAG: 9402080246
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Medium
It's not that the Czech writer, who died in 1924, was personally intimidating. But his stories - claimed variously by such intellectual movements as expressionism, surrealism and existentialism - can be.
``I don't know how many of you have had the thrill, the pleasure, the honest-to-God excitement, of reading Franz Kafka,'' stand-up comedian Shelley Berman typically tells an audience before doing a satire on him. ``I know I haven't ...''
So why would high school drama students from Southwest Virginia try to perform a stage version of ``Metamorphosis,'' one of Kafka's more difficult works, in state high school play competition?
That's a question that others have asked Rhonda Welsh, who is directing the Pulaski County High School Players' entry. The judging at the regional level starts Saturday morning at Cave Spring High School.
The answer may come at 7 p.m. Friday in the school's Little Theater with the only public performance of the play. Admission is $2 for adults and $1 for students, which the group hopes will cover script royalties.
Aaron Parks plays the central character suffering the title change, no little challenge since it requires making the audience believe he is metamorphosing into an insect. Penny ``Kat'' Norris, April Corvin and Mark Dye play family members whose reactions range from pity and love to greed and disgust as their sole financial supporter wastes away.
Jason Horne plays Parks' boss as well as one of three potential boarders - along with Lindsay Hudson and Nicole Burgess - that the family considers taking in to make ends meet. To succeed, the cast must sustain the story's high intensity level for the entire 34-minute performance.
Sound and light technicians and other assistants include Shawn Faulkner, Jake Blevins, Wren Lanier, Ashley Irby, Nathan Morehead, Scott Adams, Jenny Barton and Michael Smith.
``I just hope we get some people Friday night,'' Welsh said, because the students need audience reaction to put the final edge on their production before competition.
``This is the type of play that not just anybody can do. ... The theatrical experience is only valid when it takes the audience to all gamuts of the emotions,'' she said.
Besides the difficulty of the play itself, the students have had to overcome obstacles that sometimes seemed worse than those Kafka himself might have conjured up.
First and foremost, there was ice and snow and missed school days.
``Each time we get a little momentum going, we get hit by the weather again. ... The curse of the weather god is continuing,'' Welsh said. The lost days cut into the rehearsal time vital for this complicated piece.
Some of the students who started with it simply lacked the scheduling flexibility to stay on through the weather complications. Welsh started out with seasoned drama students, but had to fall back on others like the first-year student now doing lights. Still, the show goes on.
It's been hard letting peole know about it.
With the school's new block scheduling, there is no opportunity as in previous years to perform teasers that might entice other students to come see the play. Because of freezing pipes at a print shop, the Players were unable to get their posters advertising the public performance printed and distributed until practically the last minute.
``It's a really hard show. They've had to do so much studying on their own,'' Welsh said. ``I think any other group of kids would just have said `I can't deal with this.'''
Occasionally the strain bubbles to the surface.
``We had a rehearsal Friday where we fought for five hours,'' Welsh said. ``We literally had to stop for 45 minutes and sit down and talk. ... It became a counseling session.''
But the Players traditionally bring back top awards in regional and state competition. And, after their public performance Friday night, they hope to do so again.
by CNB