THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 8, 1996 TAG: 9603060130
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ERIC FEBER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
Great Bridge High School is best known as one of the top wrestling powers in the state, but that's not the only winning team at the school.
The school's drama team, under the direction of Edwin Jacob, known as ``Mr. J.,'' recently won first place in the Virginia High School League-sponsored Eastern Regional Theater Festival held last month at Indian River High School.
Great Bridge beat out seven other high school drama teams from around South Hampton Roads. The team did it with the time-worn ``Romeo and Juliet'' by William Shakespeare, a staple of high school productions Jacob and his actors streamlined for the '90s.
On Saturday, Jacob and his ready-for-prime-time players will compete for state honors at the VHSL State Theater Festival taking place this weekend in Charlottesville.
During the past five years Jacob said his students have won either the VHSL or Virginia Theater Association competitions.
``We're the only school to have won the VTA two times in a row,'' Jacob said. ``We rotate every year; we compete in the VTA one year and then the VHSL the next.''
Jacob said his team won in 1992 for its original dramatic version of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's ``The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' and again in 1994 for an original play, ``The Last Tree,'' a dramatic look at the ecological disaster that beset the Easter Islands. Schools that win must sit out the following year and are eligible to compete only after that.
The fact that Jacob's players won the regional VHSL competition with a play known by almost everyone in the universe was no small feat, he said.
But first he and his young actors had to customize the production and give it new power.
``We had to tweak it down to fit within the competition's 30-minute time allotment,'' he said. ``We got it down to 24 minutes and 30 seconds.''
Jacob said he and his students worked on Shakespeare's classic by committee to formulate a breath-taking, supercharged version of this tale of two star-crossed lovers and their warring families.
``The concept is the juxtaposition of events taking place,'' said Jacob, known for engaging his students in emotive, often noisy and very physical warm-ups and freeing-up exercises. ``Our version is a real model of cause and effect and relationships.''
Jacob said this new version is close to a three-ring circus of in-your-face dramatics. Simple, suggestive costumes are used and the stage sports little or no scenery or props.
``We have as many as three scenes going on at one time,'' he said. ``We timed it so that several scenes end or are linked using the same word in the dialogue. It's amazing how many lines the characters say that can be said at the same time. We shift from one scene to another. The action just goes back and forth. We make the action happen simultaneously.''
Jacob said all the actors are on the stage at the same time throughout the production.
``The challenge is to maintain the audience's focus in the right place,'' he said. ``We do that through the use of tableaux, variation of tempo and stage composition. It never stops. We give the audience a wild ride for close to 30 minutes.''
The three judges who rated the Eastern Regional competition at Indian River High gave the Great Bridge team points for diction/handling the language, for composition/storytelling and for ensemble effect.
``Each actor is in it, each actor is in the moment,'' he said. ``Before we go on with this production everyone must be totally focused. It's all totally choreographed.''
Jacob said he does a Shakespeare production every other year. As with ``Romeo and Juliet,'' he's not afraid to rework the bard to hold his students' and audience's attention, much the same way actor/director Kenneth Branagh handled ``Henry V,'' ``Much Ado About Nothing'' and the recent ``Othello.''
``Like Shakespeare did at the Globe, you have to work the audience,'' he said. ``Some people may say we have a lack of reverence for his works. But when we play around with it, we open up the possibilities of the script and in the end my students gain respect and reverence for his work. They are no longer afraid of Shakespeare. Anyway, I'm a firm believer in `he who tells the story best, owns it.' ''
The Great Bridge High School Drama Team consists of Carey Price as Jacob's assistant director and actors Scott Barlow, Brian Bresheares, Shawn Cavanaugh, Trey Clarkson, Heather Davis, Bob Higgins, Cathy Holden, Andy Kohr, Matt Krasnoff, Kera McGehee, Brant Powell, Matt Russell, Anna Simmons, Jennifer Sutliff, Jaimie Swingley, Billy Thompson and Sarah Beth Untiedt.
Jacob said he chose his cast through open auditions but he does have several students who have proved their dramatic prowess through participation in past productions.
``I have a core of about 15 students who are in most plays we do,'' he said. ``But this year we've added to that number. We got a good crop of 10th grade students, and several are in this production.''
Jacob's directorial style, method acting procedures and rapport with his students have enabled him to turn out gifted actors. by CNB