Kade Mendelowitz Lighting Designer PO Box 81522 Fairbanks, AK ..... 99708 kade@ldi.nu

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Review: The Island

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"Lighting designer Kade Mendelowitz makes the lights seem alive and menacing during traumatic scenes, softening the colors tenderly during touching moments."

The Island See photographs from this production

The New Lemming Entertainment Guide
October 10, 1996

..... UAF Salisbury Theater opens the '96-'97 season with the thought provoking and ennobling performance of Athol Fugard's "The Island". It ran for 73 performances in South Africa where it was created during the worst years of apartheid.

..... Director Anatoly Antohin says, "When you accept an unacceptable situation, you become a prisoner, you do not need to become imprisoned to become a prisoner, if you accept the unacceptable". He first say the play in Berlin 21 years ago ,and although he couldn't understand the language he was inspired. "I've had it in the back of my mind to direct this play ever since."

..... Karl Kalen and Mike Choralle [Karoly] give a powerful and emotionally charged performance as two prisoners wrongly imprisoned for political reasons. The play begins with flashing lights and a loud-speaker bellowing harsh commands, while the two protagonists cower.

..... There is a kind of magic between Karl and Mike. They are immediately convincing as cellmates who have lived together through hellish conditions for a seeming eternity. They rage at each other with the subtle nuances of old lovers, show tenderness like old friends, and laugh together and alone like mocking greybeards.

..... The comedy is both simple and physical which compliments the stark and depressing nature of prison life. Do not get the impression that this is a light play. The Island's portrayal of the dismal nature of human suffering at the rough hands of justice pulls no punches.

..... In a seemingly paradoxical focus for the anguish of the imprisonment, John and Winston are rehearsing 'Antigone', a play within a play.

..... This second story also involves a choice, Antigone is a woman who faces a dilemma, that of burying her brother, although it is forbidden by the King, and she will be put to death for disrespecting the law. Her conscience tells her that although it is the law, that does not make it just or right.

..... Nell Chapman and Tamara Leigh play two sisters who rage against each other's stubbornness until their argument grinds to resignation. For Antigone, the decision to bury her brother is an easy one; she declares that a life lived without honor is not worth living. In a parallel development, Winston is coming to terms with his own feelings of abandonment, when John finds out he is soon to be released. The sisters appear in a dream and Antigone's courage imparts strength to Wilson to face his life imprisonment with integrity.

..... Costumes by Tara Maginnis serve diverse purposes, the prisoners use them as props, to cover their psychic nakedness, and later as the costumes of Antigone and King Creon when Winston and John perform the Greek tragedy as the play's finale.

..... The set has every feel of a lightless and dank prison cell. Designed by visiting artist Timaree McCormick, incorporating the desperation and hopelessness into a very effective stage.

..... Lighting designer Kade Mendelowitz makes the lights seem alive and menacing during traumatic scenes, softening the colors tenderly during touching moments. Sounds help to create the full environment one feels watching The Island. Drums, sirens, voices, and the unmistakable sound of keys on bars, make the prisoners existence come alive. Sound designer Alex Hurlbut, and Rafaela Stacheter fill out the production team. All in all it was an excellent production very professionally done and we highly recommend it.

..... Oct. 10-20 Thu., Fri., Sat. Performance 8:15 p.m., Sun., 2 p.m. Tickets are $10 adults, $8 faculty and staff, $5 children. "The Island" a play by award wining South African playwright Athol Fugard developed by Winston Ntshona. This is a moving and uplifting drama about maintaining humanity in spite of social injustice and inhumane treatment. It is the first production by UAF Salisbury Theater this season.

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