Theater at the University of the Virgin Islands took a step forward this week with 24 students on both campuses collaborating on choral chanting parts of more than 40 creation myths and two short plays about Adam and Eve.
Douglas Larche, UVI’s playwright in residence, put together the program, called "In the Beginning." It is a small-scale, low-budget affair; a "reader’s theater" and "choral reading," where the young actors and actresses read their parts aloud.
The young actors and actresses threw themselves into the show, reading their parts with verve and feeling and the 50-or-so fellow students, teachers and family members who came out Monday for the second show on St. Croix applauded enthusiastically after each scene.
"It’s just amazing how well they’ve done. They had one rehearsal before going on," Larche said Monday at the second of five shows this week.
The students reading and performing come to theater from concentrations in nursing, business management, biology and psychology.
Crystal Peter, a 21-year-old nursing major from St. Croix said she became interested in theater because of a creative writing class she was required to take. Cecily Lawrence, a 22-year-old business administration major, was recruited by Larche and by Opal Adisa, editor of the UVI literary magazine, The Caribbean Writer, and thought it would be interesting.
Lawrence said she really had fun acting in school plays back in elementary school but had not had a chance to be in theater since.
All four scenes are written by different authors, but all explore the nature of human relationships through the vehicle of creation stories.
Scene one was a choral reading of "In the Beginning," a new work by Larche. Separate sections of the chorus read parts of more than 40 different creation stories, so the sound and source of different passages kept moving and changing. Several students gave short soliloquies on this or that religion’s story.
The second scene was the one-act play, “The Diary of Adam and Eve," a comedy written by Marc Bucci, based on the critically-acclaimed Mark Twain short story of the same name. Christopher Williams plays Young Adam, Chamica Charles plays Young Eve, and Joshua Jno-Pierre plays the Snake.
After an intermission, the program resumed with the last act of a new play recently produced by an all-black cast of the Indiana Repertory Theatre entitled, “Searching for Eden.” Loosely based on the same Mark Twain story, it follows Adam and Eve back to the Garden as mature adults. Mature Adam is played by Bayley Garbutt and Mature Eve by Kathleen Pascal. Adam and Eve discuss their lives, their youth, the tragedy of Cain killing Abel, and how their love has developed over time.
The show is punctuated by a rousing choral reading by all 24 actors of James Weldon Johnson’s great sermon and poem, “The Creation.” This reading was originally produced this year to great acclaim at the Spirituality Forum held during the inauguration of UVI’s new President David Hall in March.
The reader’s theater and choral reading productions mark a second small step forward for UVI theater. After a hiatus, theater came back to UVI last fall when Larche directed students in "Truth On Trial," a play about famed abolitionist and temperance activist Sojourner Truth. Unfortunately, Larche had to go on leave for some time due to a family loss, and when he returned, there were only two students registered in any of his spring theatre classes. So he recruited across both campuses and all majors to find volunteers for this new production, he said.
"We are in the process of trying to honor and restore a very proud UVI theater tradition and this is an important step," Larche said.
St. Thomas performers include: Garbutt, Jno-Pierre, Pascal, Charles, Williams, Larche, Tiffany Bernier, Tasia Caines, Edward Cello, Angelica Claxton, Shanae Gill, Orecia Hughes, Asheda Maccow, Carlla Morris, Cory Rodia, Kaseem Romney, Naji Shadeed and Leslyn Tonge.
Members from St. Croix include: Peter, Lawrence, Adisa, Alex Boedigheimer, Ilyn Musser and Wendell Grouby Jr. Larche arranged and directed the production, Adisa conducted rehearsals on St. Croix, and Robin Sterns provided help with logistics.
The remaining three performances will be on St. Thomas. They are set for 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday and at noon on Wednesday. All shows will be presented in the Administration and Conference Center on the UVI campus. All performances are free to UVI students, faculty and staff, as well as the entire V.I. community.