When Aristophanes wrote The Frogs, I doubt he thought that millennia later, audiences would
still be laughing over the comedy. The
play has changed a bit since then—the cultural references and songs have been
updated to be relevant to modern audiences—but the story is still as witty as
ever. Henry Clay High School’s
performance, directed by Kristian Junker and Kiefer Shuler, was a highly
entertaining rendition.
I went to the first showing of the play, on Wednesday,
January 27th at 8 pm, but the actresses already seemed comfortable
in their roles and with each other. The
goddess Diane (Emily Spencer) was portrayed with all the haughtiness and
flightiness of the character in mythology.
Her quest to Hades dressed as Hercules to retrieve a long-dead dramatist
is comical, and she portrays it as such.
However, everyone has people they wish to bring back from the dead, and
the serious part of the character was not neglected. Diane was willing to face many dangers in
order to accomplish her goal; Spencer managed to show the balance between
cowardice and sheer determination that make the character real. Xanthias (Jade Kropp), Diane’s slave, was the
comedic center of the play. His role is
the archetypal fool, and Kropp was obviously embracing the role. She engaged the audience several times,
telling jokes and asking for opinions.
Sometimes this technique can feel forced, but Kropp made it seem
perfectly natural, as if we were watching just as she was. Her chemistry with Spencer also brought an
added element of comedy to the play.
When one thinks about slaves in Aristophanes’ day, one doesn’t imagine
them as insolent and courageous, and yet Kropp again makes this seem normal. However, Kropp’s adopted British accent was
slightly off-putting, and could make her lines difficult to understand at
times.
Hercules (Rachael Gilbert), a man’s man, was portrayed
well. Gilbert seemed perfectly
comfortable in the role, even persevering through a wardrobe malfunction (her
toga coming undone at the shoulder). After
a moment, she passed this off as a normal occurrence, and Spencer quickly
remedied the issue. The encounter with
the Deadman (Emily Crum) was humorous, even though it was hard to understand
the significance of the conversation without a thorough understanding of
mythology.
Charon (Alyssa Payton), the boatman to Hades, was
perfectly sarcastic and dreary. Payton
perfectly portrayed the annoyance of someone trying to guide someone clueless
through ordinary tasks. And then the
frog chorus for which the play was named (Isabel Jenkins, Raiffa Syamil, Jade
Curless, and Ji-Hae Kim) came onto the stage.
The frogs sang their croaking song, perfectly synchronized and
coordinated—except Frog #4. Kim was the
absent-minded, clumsy frog, the one who brought the real humor to the
quartet. She managed to be funny and
cute, while the other frogs attempted to bring her into sync with
exasperation. Their song was beautifully
done; all four could sing very well.
Within Hades, the characters were just as
well-done. The priestess Diane
encounters (Isabel Jenkins) brings irony to the scene, as she refuses to speak
to the goddess. The fact that she was
still wearing her frog costume under her cloak implied that the priestess’
haughtiness came from Diane’s rude treatment of the frogs earlier. The two women who accost Diane, thinking she
is Hercules (Maya Creamer and Ji-Hae Kim) add a new dimension of humor—while
Diane thought she would be more successful if she dressed like Hercules (who,
of course, had invaded Hades before), this actually impeded her progress. The two women have some grievances with
Hercules, and Creamer and Kim play their banter well. They seem to be just like the gossips one
would expect in an ancient marketplace, and illustrate the hidden dangers of
taking someone else’s identity. And
then, at last, Diane gives Xanthias the costume, but they are cornered by three
residents of Hades who were looking for an intruder (Rachael Gilbert, Emily
Crum, and Alyssa Payton). The resulting
tests to determine which of the two is the true deity bring another element
into the play. Xanthias and Diane both
pass the test, but Xanthias is supposed to be only a slave. If both can pass the test of pain, then is
there a real difference between them?
The set was very simplistic; there were two panels to
represent doors, and that was really it.
However, this worked well. It
brought the attention to the actresses instead of the set, and elaborate set
pieces were not needed for the play. The
lighting was simple as well, although it changed to more red and orange hues
when Diane and Xanthias entered Hades.
The togas were made from towels and fabric draped over the actresses,
but that was enough to evoke the old Greco-Roman tradition. The only times microphones were used were
when someone was singing or playing music offstage, but the actresses were
easily heard in the small theater. Also,
the modern references and songs, which seem like they would detract from the
performance, actually added to the humor of the play, and the ridiculousness of
the characters.
The play ended abruptly, but that was what
Aristophanes intended. The actresses did
well with this ending, making it feel like it had a resolution. Overall, this was a very well done
performance, especially considering the ages of the actresses. They performed very much like professionals,
and even managed to move past the small mistakes they made along the way. For a small-scale high school performance,
they did a very good job. I would give
this performance a B overall, though, because of the bits of the play that were
harder to understand and the mistakes that were made.
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