MOUNT VERNON — “Big Love,” a modern comic version of an ancient Greek tragedy where 50 sisters are forced to marry 50 brothers – who happen to be their cousins – opens Wednesday, March 16, at Cornell College featuring Cornell students and professional actors from
Riverside Theatre in Iowa City.
Performances in Cornell’s Kimmel Theatre run daily through March 19 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for youth, students and senior citizens. Admission is free for Cornell students, faculty, staff, emeriti faculty and retired staff. For reservations, call 895-4293.
The play moves to Riverside Theatre, 213 N. Gilbert St., March 24-26, March 31, April 1-3 and April 6-10. Performances are at 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. For ticket prices and reservations, call (319) 338-7672.
The play by Charles Mee is a whimsical update of “The Suppliant Women” by Aeschylus. Fifty sisters forced to marry 50 brothers make a pact to kill their grooms. The women flee Greece and seek asylum in Italy, but the men follow them to compel the marriage.
Mee is a well-known contemporary playwright who assembles his plays from various sources much like a theatrical collage. This production of “Big Love” features broad comedy, dance numbers, poetry, pop music and suspense as it examines the relationships between men and women. It explores whether one gender should be allowed to dominate another and implications of seeking and offering refuge.
“Big Love” contains brief nudity.
The co-production is the fifth Cornell-Riverside collaboration since 1996. Riverside Theatre’s artistic directors, Ron Clark and Jody Hovland, are artists-in-residence at Cornell and will appear in the play. “Big Love” director Mark Hunter, chair of Cornell’s theatre and communications studies department, has worked with Riverside for several years, including directing a production at the Riverside The atre Shakespeare Festival each summer since its inception. Assistant professor Scott Olinger, scenic and lighting designer, has showcased his work at previous Riverside productions .
“Cornell can offer a play with a wider variety of believable ages and characters, and Riverside Theatre can offer a work with a larger cast and more design support than might be typical,” Hovland says. “Students have the new perspective of what it takes to discipline yourself for a long run and the experience of playing for two very different audiences and theatrical spaces.”
“Big Love” features costume design by Jenny Nutting-Kelchen and choreography by Matthew Lindstrom, both visiting instructors at Cornell.
