Ben Yahle and Ben Zacharia in The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek. Photo by Tanaha Simon.
Last week, while being shocked into the slushy-white realization that winter is definitely upon us, eight individuals were bracing themselves for their last week of rehearsal before tech week. In addition to the stress of midterms and the dreaded tests, papers and presentations that come too soon after midterms, these individuals have had the added pressure of intensely-focused rehearsals from 6:30 to 10:30 Monday through Thursday. Think your month has been exhausting? Try putting up a contextually complex, main-stage play in just three weeks.
Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the cast and crew of The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, Conn’s Mainstage show premiering this Thursday evening.
The cast is comprised of Ben Zacharia ’13, Emily Lake ’11, Logan Keeler ’11, Kristin Kerr ’11 and Ben Yahle ’11. In addition, there’s director Nancy Hoffman of the Theater Department, stage manager Mikey Harris ’11 and student lighting designer Andy Smith ’11. Trestle is being produced so quickly due to the way that the arts calendar falls this year. Since the Performing Arts departments share many of the same resources, the calendar year is broken down to best accommodate all shows and it just so happened that this year, three weeks was all the calendar had to offer.
As some will recall from last year, after putting up a spectacle the size and effort (costumes, set design, lighting, energy, etc.) of The Tempest, the theater department opted to follow up with the play Doubt, a change of pace with a smaller cast, fewer costumes and changes, and a much simpler set. After Our Town earlier this semester, the same can be said of Trestle; with a cast of five consistent characters and a setting as bleak as the description “generic town” can describe, the play makes sense all the while maintaining incredibly interesting characters and situations.
The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek is a play written by Naomi Wallace, and is set in the U.S. in 1936 in the midst of the Great Depression. The play follows the lives and actions of Pace and Dalton, two teenagers engaged in the not-so-typical angst of growing up while dealing with death, loneliness and tragedy, and struggling to find excitement and existential meaning in a time of greater difficulty. Much of the play is not particularly easy to work through and the language – with Wallace having been a poet before a playwright – is densely concentrated with meaning, yet the cast feels that they’ve really been able to get a hold on things.
Last week, director Hoffman said that rehearsals “have been great. The actors have been wonderful.”
With such loaded language, Kerr admitted the difficulty of the material the cast had three weeks to extrapolate, saying, “The first time I read the play I found it a challenging read, but all of my perceptions changed once I took the words off the page. This is one of those plays you really can’t sit down and enjoy like a novel.”
Kerr plays Gin Chance, a character she describes as worn out but hopeful, an example of life imitating art, perhaps? Yet hopeful is how the cast members remain; ever optimistic, Keeler speaks for the group in saying, “I don’t believe the experience and understanding will be different between actor and audience member. Sure, [the cast has] had three weeks on the script while the audience gets an hour and a half. But on stage it’s not just the words, it’s the living breathing experience that gives those words meaning.”
Making Trestle all the more interesting an experience is the actor Ben Yahle. If his name doesn’t immediately ring a bell, that’s because Yahle is a 1st-class Cadet (Senior) at the Coast Guard Academy. Co-President of the Drama Club there, Yahle has directed plays (specifically I Hate Hamlet) with and for his fellow cadets at the Academy.
Yahle’s first real experience on our campus was to see the play Language of Angels, which Hoffman also directed. After developing a taste for theater at the tail end of high school, and with cadets only being allowed so many electives, Yahle patiently waited four years and decided to take an acting class with Hoffman. Then, on a whim, he decided to audition for the play after she mentioned it in class and prepared a monologue in a day.
“Ben is great,” Lake said. “He’s extremely talented and fun to be around. [The cast] actually went bowling at the Coast Guard Academy and that was really fun. It allowed us to spend time together and be silly outside of rehearsals.”
Discussing recent events between our institutions and underlying tension, I asked Yahle if he thought it was difficult or weird being so engaged in the Conn community. “I don’t think [the tension] comes out of a genuine dislike of people, I think it’s just the fact that you don’t know. And there are so many restrictions on [Coast Guard Academy Students]… that we don’t get out enough to come over here really often. So I found out about the class, love acting, and thought it’d be a good thing to do,” Yahle said.
With some of the cadets having really taken to the fact that Yahle will be performing at Conn, there’s some anticipation that CGA will let students come and see him in the show this week. Through the Great Depression and the sport of bowling, it seems Conn and Coast Guard Academy are growing closer rather than apart.
In speaking with most of the cast members, it appears getting through the three week rehearsal process has been almost entirely a group effort. Keeler said, “[The play’s] really poetic and cryptic and by digging around it and trying everything, we have, at least in our minds, really discovered what’s under the skin of these characters…this is something that really needs to be done with the whole cast, not individually.”
In between some extreme balancing acts, surprise spitting and a few Office-style jokes, this group of thespians has worked really hard to create a world that we’re just as immersed in as they’ve found themselves and done so over the last three weeks. These students have created an experience that they’re ready to share with two communities so close and so far apart, and in speaking with the cast, there seems to be a common thread of collected cool. “I know that everyone’s going to bring their A game, so I’m not worried about only having three weeks at all,” Yahle said.
Heavily relying on each other, it seems three weeks, an immense amount of dedication and desire have helped their characters take form. As Lake said, “I think it’s really an impressive piece and we’ve definitely thought long and hard about each of our characters.”
Hoffman said, “I chose the actors because I think they’re good and right for the part and that they’re also they’re brave enough and they bring a lot of integrity to the material, because it’s challenging material, but they’ve all done an amazing job… so I’m not worried at all. I’m not worried at all. I’ve been really impressed.”
From speaking with the stars, so am I, and I believe you all will be as well.
