THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 18, 1995 TAG: 9508180044
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
IT IS ABSOLUTELY true that Michael Woodhead directed ``Arachne,'' a new play by Lewis White that opens tonight at the Governor's School for the Arts theater.
But you won't catch Woodhead calling himself director.
``I am the only audience member for the rehearsal process,'' he said humbly.
Neither will this well-spoken and energetic teen tell the actors how to act. Nothing so tyrannical as that. He makes observations and suggestions to help an actor find the emotional and physical center of his or her character.
The signs are flashing: These are not your run-of-the-mill thespians.
Woodhead, 19, and White, 22, are members of a new theater company called Theater Hounds in Naughty Knickers. The eight, ages 19 to 23, are grads of the Governor's School for the Arts theater program.
They have much in common.
``We are all trained as actors; we all are working on plays. All of us have had some sort of directing experience. And we all have similar ideas about what theater is,'' said Woodhead.
``We're trying to break down some of the hierarchies'' in theater, White added. ``We think theater is a tool to affect the world around you. It is not an end in itself.''
The group is egalitarian. There is no artistic or managing director. No persons are earmarked as playwrights or dramaturgs. Instead, everyone takes turns occupying all positions.
The Hounds are committed to producing new and unpublished plays.
White's ``Arachne'' was given birth earlier this summer. In a June meeting, members voted to devote two weeks to script writing. While most came up with a couple of scenes, White emerged with a complete outline that read well.
White, a senior English major at the College of William and Mary, adapted the classic myth of Arachne, a common weaver who challenges the goddess Athena and finally is turned into a web-weaving spider for her arrogance.
Press material describes a work of great ambition: ``Concerned simultaneously with mythic origins and originality, `Arachne' fearlessly confronts the challenges of the art, philosophy and literature of Western history. Along the way, it examines the constructs of early Christianity and compares them to that of High Modernist art.''
White's version is set in the 1990s and centers on an unhappy woman's search for divinity, via the act of creation.
White - a gaunt and fidgety man with curly brown hair who recently played Romeo for an Oceanfront Shakespeare festival - paced the stage as he clarified his intent.
The play, he said, ``strives to answer the question: In what ways can art matter? And I'm not sure the answer is entirely encouraging. I think it's ambivalent. I think it's clearly ambivalent.''
For White, each character represents a historical idea about the way the universe functions. Yet, that intent should not be obvious to the audience. ``The play really is grounded in action,'' he said.
The Hounds have kept in touch for as long as a decade.
Woodhead started taking acting classes at the Kempsville Recreation Center when he was 10. Four years later, he and White made friends on the set crew at Kempsville Playhouse.
By now, the Hounds are a disciplined troupe, accustomed to 16-hour days, Woodhead said. In high school, most kept up their grades and held down jobs plus attended rehearsals and performances.
The visiting professional thespians at the Governor's School also inspired discipline, said Woodhead.
``And, of course, there's Mike Tick. You cannot fail to mention him,'' he said.
Michael Tick, chair of the Governor's School theater department, said it was not a coincidence that members of the Hounds gravitated to one another.
``Academically and talent-wise, they rank among some of the best students we have had in eight years,'' Tick said.
They are the best of the best: About 250 students from throughout the region compete each year to be among the elite 20 in the theater program, Tick said.
Each Hound took Tick's advanced course in American theater history. The class covered Steppenwolf Theater Ensemble in Chicago, which produced such top talent as John Malkovich. Tick believes the Hounds' philosophy was at least partly inspired by Steppenwolf, an actor-operated theater company with members drawn together by a shared philosophy.
Instead of being a director's pawn, taking bit parts here and there in New York, the Steppenwolf actors opted for a collaborative ensemble.
``After having a taste of a unified vision,'' Woodhead said, ``I never want to work in the established hierarchy.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
RICHARD L. DUNSTON/Staff
Playwrights Mike Woodhead, 19, and Lewis White, 22, are graduates of
the Governor's School for the Arts.
by CNB