Wittenberg
Martin Luther, Hamlet and Faustus all walk into a frat house. That's it, there is no punch line!! Wouldn't you like to hear those conversations? "Wittenberg" brings them directly to you-the student audience.
Playwright/UT Grad David Davalos mesmerizes us with his witty, intellectual, and frankly disturbing (for some) play pitting scholar against clergy via these three infamous figures. OH what writing, if I could BE so creative. What's more Orlando Shakes pulls it off with a performance that is off the charts outstanding.
Orlando Shakes director Jim Helsinger takes the stage in this one, playing Dr. John Faustus the coffee & cannabis prescribing professor at Wittenberg University All Hallows Day 1517, the setting for our play.
Returning to O-Town is the beloved Eric Hissom playing protestant leader and pope slanderer Martin Luther. The action takes place just before Luther publishes his famous theses that would become the documents sparking the reformation.
Rounding out the trio is Zack Robidas playing a pre-Shakespearian, verse spouting Hamlet. This is the Hamlet, Hamlet might have been in the years leading up to the infamous events of his fathers death the event that opens the well-known play. Hamlet is a student at Wittenberg University and has befriended both Luther and Faustus.
We are introduced to both Faustus, enlightened professor and scientist; and to Luther, respected theologian an spiritual leader. Both are teaching university classes in their field of expertise and Hamlet, who is caught up between the two opposing viewpoints cannot decide which side is the truth. Hamlet consults with both men in order to translate the meaning of his very disturbing dream. A dream in which he is tittering on a precipice looking down at a great chasm. Both professors stay true to their philosophies when explaining the dream and we witness a great debate unfold between science and religion. All three men undergo a personal journey of discovery which ultimately results in Martin Luther writing his great theses criticizing the Catholic practice of "indulgences". We learn that it is Faustus who has nailed the thesis up for all to read, sparking the protestant reformation.
For us, Wittenberg is a great debate about our own spirituality and the importance or (lack of) need for organized religion. We learn as Luther does that the church is fallable and merely an institution created by man. We also learn of the importance of spirtuality in whatever form as we experience Faustus' journey of unrequited love.
This play is unequivocally the best play we have ever seen at Orlando Shakes. Mark, Gary and Karen, I daresay, felt the same.
Playwright/UT Grad David Davalos mesmerizes us with his witty, intellectual, and frankly disturbing (for some) play pitting scholar against clergy via these three infamous figures. OH what writing, if I could BE so creative. What's more Orlando Shakes pulls it off with a performance that is off the charts outstanding.
Orlando Shakes director Jim Helsinger takes the stage in this one, playing Dr. John Faustus the coffee & cannabis prescribing professor at Wittenberg University All Hallows Day 1517, the setting for our play.
Returning to O-Town is the beloved Eric Hissom playing protestant leader and pope slanderer Martin Luther. The action takes place just before Luther publishes his famous theses that would become the documents sparking the reformation.
Rounding out the trio is Zack Robidas playing a pre-Shakespearian, verse spouting Hamlet. This is the Hamlet, Hamlet might have been in the years leading up to the infamous events of his fathers death the event that opens the well-known play. Hamlet is a student at Wittenberg University and has befriended both Luther and Faustus.
We are introduced to both Faustus, enlightened professor and scientist; and to Luther, respected theologian an spiritual leader. Both are teaching university classes in their field of expertise and Hamlet, who is caught up between the two opposing viewpoints cannot decide which side is the truth. Hamlet consults with both men in order to translate the meaning of his very disturbing dream. A dream in which he is tittering on a precipice looking down at a great chasm. Both professors stay true to their philosophies when explaining the dream and we witness a great debate unfold between science and religion. All three men undergo a personal journey of discovery which ultimately results in Martin Luther writing his great theses criticizing the Catholic practice of "indulgences". We learn that it is Faustus who has nailed the thesis up for all to read, sparking the protestant reformation.
For us, Wittenberg is a great debate about our own spirituality and the importance or (lack of) need for organized religion. We learn as Luther does that the church is fallable and merely an institution created by man. We also learn of the importance of spirtuality in whatever form as we experience Faustus' journey of unrequited love.
This play is unequivocally the best play we have ever seen at Orlando Shakes. Mark, Gary and Karen, I daresay, felt the same.
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