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News & ReviewsDante's InfernoPlay Explores the Medieval Hell of Dating Has high Christian art been leading only to an allegory about dating hell during all these centuries? Perhaps not entirely, but at Fort Lewis College, Kurt Lancaster and Desiree Russell have rewritten Dante Alighieri's classic 14th century poem "Dante's Inferno" to focus on increasingly worrying vignettes of lovers getting it wrong. The lovers range from arguing about who's going to clean the cat poop to shooting one another. The production alternates text from the original poem, or at least from a translation by Robert Pinsky, with the modern vignettes. The music mixes periods, too: In an effective innovation, Dawson Cole as Plegyas, a fearsome attacking demon, croons an 18th-century folk song. The plot largely follows the original with Dante (Patrick Wiabel, who had a complex part to learn) loving and losing his Beatrice (Amelia Charter, who belies the stereotype that beautiful blondes can't act) and then taking a tour through hell with the ancient poet Virgil (Geoff Johnson) as his guide. As the dress rehearsal began Monday, director Kathryn Moller cautioned that she might have to stop the play at any point because it contained so much action that her concern for the actors' safety was paramount. They all emerged intact by the end of the evening, though it was easy to see what she's talking about with ferocious frights lunging for their victims and furies (Anna Jany, Michelle Manygoats and Stephanie Sheely) rolling about under people's feet. The rolling about led to one of the most innovative design tricks. Flowing water was created by a pale blue cloth with actors gyrating beneath it. Sometimes their hands stuck out when they doubled as lost souls. The best fight is gone from the production, however. For the climax, Dante originally fought Lucifer, (the watchable and powerful Athena Gundlach), but Lancaster e-mailed Thursday to say he's rewritten the scene so Dante uses poetry to force Lucifer back into his hole. Pity. But nothing will interfere with Gundlach's costume. Nearly hairless except for an upright pigtail and clad in a bathing suit resplendent with bondage straps and hairy patches, she steals the show with her appearance and her presence. Her costume is a triumph for designers Shanti Johnson and Ammon Swofford, but I didn't understand their decision to dress Dante as a 19th Century French artist, with a beret. The visual effects are beautiful and original. The stage is backed with a set of curtains designed by Nathan Lee that can look as if they're five layers deep. He reconfigures them frequently to give the scenes change, pace and style. Working with LeAnn Brubaker, Durango's mistress of all things lighting, and Lancaster designing the many images that are projected on the curtains, they make the evening. An extra pleasure is the shadows of the actors that appear on the side walls. Another is motionless actors bent double under translucent cloths so Lucifer can treat them as souls so damned as to be unworthy of her interest. The production is wrapped in stunning gigantic slides of a single iris, Beatrice's signature flower. Then, the journey into hell allows the creators to build in intensity with the increasing use of reds and blacks. Gundlach's silhouette before she enters the stage is another highlight. As for the actors, Charter and Ian William Colson get the nod for versatility as they create all of the feuding couples. The ensemble has created an original production, a role model for students at a time in their life when few activities could be better for them than getting to know the classics of art and wondering how they might be adapted. |