Blitz!

Friday and Saturday I participated in a Blitz. At Hiram, a Blitz is one part theatre, three parts craziness. On Friday at 9:00 p.m. the theatre guild threw a party in Drury Hall. Then they pick a play, based on who shows up and is willing to act. After a play is voted on, the roles are divided, and the group reads through the lines. Then everybody scatters like mad to get costumes, make a set, find props, and draw publicity posters. If we have time afterward we do another read through. Then when we finish, usually between 1:00 and 2:00 in the morning, we get some sleep before meeting for breakfast at 8:30. We practice and nap and get everything ready to put the show on at 9:00 that evening. So, in a few words, Blitz is 24 hour theatre.

It's crazy, but fun.

When I spent a night at Hiram last year, I was lucky enough to help prepare a Blitz and had a great time, so I decided to do it this year. We chose a play called The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [abridged]. It is a very funny play that sort of summarizes all of the famous plays into one, similar to how Shrek makes a conglomeration out of all the fairy tales and nursery rhymes. The first act deals with all of the plays but one, while the second act is entirely dedicated to Hamlet. It's a three-man show, and we began with four actors: myself, Carla, John, and Toni (President of the Theatre Guild). But it was easy enough to divide the roles up since each of the characters play several roles. Carla and I were to play the same character, divvying up the male and female roles among us. An hour later we decided to turn our character into a pair of conjoined twins, which was a big laugh. However, the next day, we encountered a twist in the plot. Toni had to visit a relative in the hospital during the day and therefore could not be in the Blitz. I ended up taking her role, letting Carla do my old lines. We found out that you have to be very flexible with a Blitz.

It turned out very nicely, and everybody seemed to really enjoy it. Scenes from the play include a botched-up Romeo and Juliet death scene, Titus Andronicus portrayed as a cooking show, Macbeth performed with outrageously over-the-top Scottish accents, all of the comedies lumped into one, and all the histories portrayed as a bloody football game. Also, Othello was a riot. It is written into the play that we try to skip Othello since none of us are an African man, but Carla's character gets the idea to present Othello entirely in rap form. None of us were particularly good at rapping, so our friend Rachel Kuhn (who until that point was only in charge of the lights) did the rap for us while John beat-boxed and Carla and I danced in the background. Rachel's awesome like that, there isn't a role she could not do. Hamlet was lots of fun, with sock puppets and sword fighting and lots of screaming from Carla, who played Ophelia (who drowns herself by throwing a cup of water in her face). Then, once Hamlet ended, we performed Hamlet in two minutes, then Hamlet in 2 seconds, then Hamlet backwards! (In the backwards play, Ophelia, who was soaked after drowning three times already, drowned backwards by spitting water back into the cup. I got to play a bunch of roles, such as a narrator, Macbeth, and Hamlet.

We had a blast at Blitz, and the audience really enjoyed the show as well. I can't wait for the next Blitz to come around!