The Portland State School of Theatre and Film has a new stage to show off, and an upcoming small-scale play is going to give them that chance.
The new Boiler Room Theatre is in Lincoln Hall, and is designed as an intimate space for smaller productions. The School of Theatre and Film will use the space for a production of Naomi Wallace’s Trestle at Pope Lick Creek. The performances will begin with a preview on Thursday, May 15, with regular weekend performances May 15–31, including Sunday matinees.
With a tiny cast of just five characters, Trestle is a play of intimate scale. A Depression-era story, it follows the lives of 15-year-old Dalton Chance and 17-year-old Pace Creagan, as they navigate growing up in the hard times presented to them.
“He’s a good boy, he honors his parents, and he wants to go to college after graduation,” said play and school director, Karin Magaldi. “But a 17-year-old Pace Creagan, who has a passion for trains and transgressing limits, crashes into his life and changes everything. This is about these two kids who want to go somewhere. They want to escape or go to college, but they live in the Depression.”
Magaldi explained that Wallace’s play was selected because it speaks to today’s environment of joblessness and recession. She explained that the politics of the time are present in the story, but are not an overwhelming characteristic. She also described Wallace’s writing of the story as being both serious and funny, with a dry wit to its humor.
“It’s very personal, but it’s also political in a good way,” she said. “Wallace is not on a soapbox, but we see in these lives the consequences of our culture, [and] how we survive in spite of it. They talk about government here or there, but it’s really not there in your face.”
And though the play is limited in size, Magaldi noted that the intimacy of the space adds a new challenge to the actors. The Boiler Room Theatre has only three rows of space between the audience and the actors, making for a very close-quarters engagement.
“It’s really a communal event, and that’s what’s exciting about it,” she said. “But it’s challenging because actors have to be real, they have to be authentic. They can’t be acting. It’s terrifying for them, but they’re really excited. I usually do large shows at PSU, so this has been quite a treat for me.”
Actor and theater major Emily Martin echoed Magaldi’s sentiments. As an actor who has played leading roles in three of the past five performances, she has a wealth of experience in large-scale productions. But she acknowledged that this will be the smallest performance, and considered the small scale to be an exciting challenge.
“I’ve never been in a show with only five characters,” Martin said. “The rehearsal process is really different, and the amount of audience interaction is going to be different. It’s nerve-racking. There’s going to be people within three feet of me that my character won’t see. It’s a very different experience that I’ve never had and I’m excited.”
The scale of the play also gives each character ample opportunity for development. Martin pointed to each character individually, noting that each has an evolution along the way. Other characters include Dalton’s parents, Gin and Dray, played by Lexie Quant and Thomas Bucciero, and the town jail guard, Chas, played by Michael Jordan. The second leading role, Dalton Chance, is played by Jack Stringer.
“While Dalton and Pace have this evolution of going to adulthood, Gin and Dray have this evolution of finding their adolescence,” Martin said. “And then there’s the jail guard, Chas. His relationship to Dalton and even to Pace is very unexpected. He has a huge evolution, but it’s just with himself, really. He’s coming from this place of guilt and uncertainty about his son’s death. It’s kind of a redemption of his son’s death through Dalton’s evolution.”
Magaldi, who has plenty of experience with large-scale playwrights such as Shakespeare, explained that this is her first time working with Wallace’s material. She pointed to similarities in their style, primarily with the attention they give to their language. Wallace, she pointed out, started out as a poet, and her works contain a rich textual read. But she also noted that Wallace works with more difficult material.
“Wallace writes about very difficult things, and things that some people will find strange and off-putting,” she said. “This play is a little edgy. It’s difficult in the way it talks about sexuality and the like. But she writes it in a very caring way. She really cares about these characters she’s writing.”
Magaldi also pointed to the rehearsal process with this cast, which involves an evolution of its own. She praised the small cast as very strong, noting that “they each bring their eyes” into their roles.
“This is a very complex script, and they’re just starting to mine it,” she said. “In the next few weeks they’re going to learn a lot about the characters in this story. It’s a wonderful collaboration between myself and students. In some ways, rehearsal is the best part of it. You get to talk a lot and you get to learn about the performance. It’s an awesome process, I will say that.”
Martin also praised the theater students overall, and noted that they have been very supportive of the upcoming production. She explained that the theater students are supportive and positive through all steps of the auditioning and rehearsal processes.
“I think there’s a lot of excitement,” she said. “Even if you aren’t cast in a show, the auditioning process is a learning opportunity for you. That’s the mindset that we have. Even watching the performance of someone who got the role over you is a learning opportunity. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback that students are excited to see it happen.”
Martin, as a graduating senior, remains undecided just where acting will fit into her professional future. But she pointed to the value of her art education in her overall studies.
“Excluding the specifics of the theater field, my art education has helped me in all of my other studies,” she said. “Especially in critical thinking, creativity and analytics, I think I’ve seen other students unable to do what I now can do. I definitely attribute that to an art education.”