School of Performing Arts brings ‘Big Love’ to UMaine
A cast of 23 will bring “Big Love” to the University of Maine to open the School of Performing Arts theatre season Oct. 21.
The UMaine production of the postmodern comedy, written by Charles Mee and based on an ancient Greek tragedy, is directed by Professor of Theatre Tom Mikotowicz. Performances in Hauck Auditorium will be at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 21–22 and Oct. 28–29; 10 a.m., Oct. 27; and 2 p.m., Oct. 23 and Oct. 30. Tickets are $10 and available online; admission is free with student MaineCard.
The audience for “Big Love” will be seated on stage, adjacent to the actors. The 180 seats will provide an intimate setting for the high-energy play about love and relationships, Mikotowicz says.
“‘Big Love’ is funny and tragic, zany and complicated — an eclectic, wild and wacky production that is from the heart,” says Mikotowicz. “It goes from high comic moments to tragic pathos and back — a very entertaining and thought-provoking play. It offers our students challenging roles that incorporate realistic and postmodern acting techniques.”
The play is the story of 50 brides-to-be — all sisters — who escape Greece and hide in Italy. In pursuit: 50 brothers they were to wed. From the sanctuary in an Italian villa, the young women reflect on love and life, and plead for asylum and freedom, while their grooms-to-be make the case for conformity. And through it all, their impromptu, unsuspecting hosts struggle with the sudden, complex influx of displaced persons.
Themes that drive the action of the play, including arranged marriages, the absence of women’s rights, male aggression toward women, the expectations of boys and girls, the meaning of true love and the treatment of immigrants are issues as pertinent today as they must have been in Ancient Greece, notes Mikotowicz.
“Big Love” is the second of Mee’s classical Greek plays that Mikotowicz has directed at UMaine. Both “Big Love” and “Wintertime” are part of the playwright’s “(re)making project” to rework classical and historical plays and texts for contemporary audiences. Mee has adapted and contemporized nearly 61 works, including this remake of Aeschylus’ tragic tale, “The Suppliant Women.”