Katelyn Moorman
Staff Writer
Read, Rant, and Relate is a free play-reading program that allows a way for people to get to know a dramatic piece of literature without having to read the play.
Anne Mason, producing artistic director and a founder of the program, said it has been running for about four years now.
“Because not a lot of people read plays,” Mason said, “this is a way to have a window into that process.”
During the program, funded in part by the Wyoming Humanity Counsel, someone from Relative Theatrics will read a piece of dramatic literature while someone else from the humanities then explains the relevance of the piece in relation to modern society issues and discussing any questions the play asks.
The readings lack the “spectacle aspect” of traditional theatre, Mason said, since there are no backdrops, sets, props or big costumes in the production. It is simply just the reading of the play by actors, accompanied by art from the University Art Museum.
“It’s stripped down. [A Doll’s House Part 2] is not a play that needs a strong setting, which is why it works very well for a reading,” Mason said.
The art is a way to broaden the production without bringing in traditional aspects of theatre. This multi-media collaboration offers new perspectives through its non-traditional means.
Mason said the art provides “another window into the ideas and thoughts of the story that is being read.”
The play being read at the Read, Rant, and Relate event on today in the University of Wyoming Art Museum is A Doll’s House Part 2 by Lucas Hnath. This play is based off of a play written in the 1800s called A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen and Thomas Ostermeier, in which a woman leaves her family. Mason said the original play was shocking to audiences of the time, and she said she thinks Hnath’s play is just as shocking today.
A large element of this play is associated with feminism and women’s roles in society, Mason said, and how those roles have or have not evolved over time. Another element of the play has to do with the characters themselves. Mason said the play’s characters are unique in the way that they behave and act.
“All the characters are forward with their thoughts,” she said. “They believe in what they’re saying.”
The openness of the characters is different from other works in which actors have to search for hidden meanings and messages within the characters’ dialogue. This is not the case with this play, Mason said. The characters say what they think and harbor no hidden agendas. The tension, however, comes from the way the different perspectives of the characters adhere or repulse each other within the play. This analysis of character dynamics is part of what drives the play, said Mason.
Mason said most audiences are weary of classic texts, and they believe they need to have read it to understand it when they see it performed. She said this is a misconception.
Mason said there is a hesitation to “partaking in the experience out of fear of being uneducated,” and that this response is unneeded. All people need to know is that the protagonist is a woman who has left her family and is returning.
“It is a very human play—if you’re human, you will connect with it,” Mason said.
The collaboration between the University of Wyoming Art Museum and Relative Theatrics is exciting, Mason said, since it builds bridges between the university community and the local community. Mason said she wants to get rid of the categorization between university and non-university affiliates and that collaborations like these are a way of doing that.
Mason said this collaboration will “open eyes to how one interreacts with art.”
The reading will be held at the University of Wyoming Art Museum from 6 to 9 p.m., but Mason said they are asking people to arrive early in order to look at the art beforehand. Refreshments and a discussion will follow the reading.
