This week on Great Art at Eastern talks with Ariana Gasparlin and Joshua Vigil of the upcoming production of Sherwood: The Adventures of Robin Hood, opening Thursday night in Portales, New Mexico.
Joshua Vigil, who plays "The illustrious Sir Guy of Gisbourne, "-the notorious, I would say Baddie of the play. Lots of purple, lots of, lots of terrible deeds, but it's a fun world to play honestly."
Ariana Gasparlin plays Maid Marian, "Robin Hood's love interest and Sir Guy's fiancé," speaks about what is unique about Ken Ludwig's play Sherwood. "I think personally for me is just a comedy that he involves in it and is a different kind of- I don't know if it is a different adaptation. I haven't really read much about Robin Hood, I guess. Given that it feels a sort of like kabuki theater, we have a ramp running from the stage into the audience, and so it's very inactive. We run through and that kind of stuff. It's pretty cool."
The other characters in the play, Such as Prince John, The Sheriff of Nottingham, and Sir Guy, Ariana and Josh, talk about how evil each is and how each "must be stopped."
With Sir Guy "He's, He's pretty bad. He's you know, raising the taxes. Being mean to people." In the pecking order of the cast of villains within the play, the sheriff of Nottingham works for him, and Sir Guy works for Prince John. "Sir Guy is something of a baron. So it Goes sheriff, Baron, then the Prince." States Joshua concerning the role he is playing of Sir Guy. The level of evil increases with the rank of the character.
About the swordplay that takes place during the play, both Ariana and Joshua both have times where they participate in stage combat. Ariana has the part where she will be shooting arrows on stage. That part of that will made through a mixture of practical and stagecraft illusion to show arrows flying through the air.
What drew Josh into the world performance was, "specifically for Eastern was the interactiveness of these plays. The way that each play takes a step in a different direction that I never really expected. That really drew me into this. This kind of theatrical setting." For Ariana, who has not all that much experience in theater. "I came from a very small place, and we didn't have a theater program until like my Junior year of high school when we came to drama-fest here. And then I got my scholarship when I came here. I really like it here. I like how it is interactive with not just the department but with outside the department."
Given that Ariana is a theater major and Josh is in digital film making, they have learned much from each other's disciplines. What have they have learned from the different perspective is that "-The other side tends to have, for me being a film major. The theatrical side really leads me to how an actor perceives the set, how an actor is going to move on set. Therefore I can design whatever I am going to be doing for a film around How I can perceive. I can guess what an actor is going to do in the setting I create. So playing the part of an actor, learning how theatrics work, because really film evolved from theater. So it really helps in getting that intuition."
The San Diego Union-Tribune calls Ken Ludwig's Sherwood, a "brightly colored, lighthearted take on the legend."
Sherwood: The Adventures of Robin Hood Written by Ken Ludwig
Directed by Patrick McCreary
ENMU University Theatre Center (UTC)
Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019, at 7 p.m.
Friday, Nov. 8, 2019, at 7 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 9, 2019, at 7 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 10, 2019 at 2 p.m.
Free admission with valid ENMU Student ID
General admission $10
Senior citizen (65+) admission $7
Military and veteran admission $7
All the Great Arts at Eastern are found at <enmu.edu/fineartsevents> And learn more about this program at KENW.org.