Photo by Paul Ruffolo
First Stage 'The Gracious Sisters'
Angel Rivera and John Eash-Scott in First Stage's 'The Gracious Sisters'.
The affairs of gods and mortals have been haunting the stage for millennia. Ancient gods are welcomed back to the stage once more in First Stage Young Company’s The Gracious Sisters. The world premiere by playwright Alice Austen casts a contemporary girl named Alice into the world of Hermes, Athena and the Furies. Angel Rivera plays Alice with passion and compassion—a young woman with an extensive knowledge of ancient Greek lore. Her knowledge casts her as a mortal oracle who aids the ancients in a trial-by-jury that playfully mutates the spirit of Aeschylus’ ancient tragedy The Eumenides.
John Eash-Scott plays Orestes, a man who freely admits to having killed his mother because the gods told him to do so. Alice joins-up with the three Roman goddess of vengeance known as The Furies in endeavoring to give Orestes the fairest trial allowable in the era. Silver Anderson, Rose Campbell and Hazel Dye perform beautifully as the Furies with a power and presence in drama, rhythm and harmony.
Though it plays like a courtroom drama and history lesson, Austen’s script feels deeply engaging under the direction of Matt Daniels. The director has done an elegant job of fostering an environment that fuses musical vocals and casually improvised percussion with the dramatic tensions and intensions echoing out of ancient myth and legend. Lyndsey Kuhlmann costume design is a clever cross between ancient and contemporary with gods and Furies masks, powerfully-rendered and modeled after those used in ancient Greek theater. Madelyn Yee’s set amplifies the feeling of the setting in a tasteful kind of minimalism that works well in the round.
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First Stage Young Company’s production of The Gracious Sisters runs through May 21 at the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center, 325 W Walnut St. For more information, visit First Stage online.
Photo by Paul Ruffolo
First Stage 'The Gracious Sisters'
Angel Rivera, Silver Anderson, Hazel Dye, and Rose Campbell in First Stage's 'The Gracious Sisters'.
