By Kade Loomis, Staff Writer
The clock is ticking in the corner. Eleven other people are sitting around the table in the back room of the courthouse. They have been given a murder case. The court has already met, and the defense has been given. The prosecutor has done their duty. All that’s left is for “Twelve Angry Jurors” to decide the fate of the accused.. This MUSE project is directed by Mac Ricks, a Musical Theatre student and current senior. This play is one that asks the viewer tough questions about life and the value of it. The show gives a raw and genuine depiction of humans, the characters not being caricatures of real people. Instead, the characters’ flaws are highlighted and revealed to the audience. Sitting down with Ricks, we’re able to see the thought process behind why he chose this show and made the artistic choices that he did.
This play is different from the other productions this year; “SchoolHouse Rock: Live!” was spectacularly colorful, “Julius Caesar” was grand both with its themes of ‘defining heroes and villains’ and with the characters being emperors, generals and top senators, while “Hello, Dolly!” will be a larger-than-life production that lives in a world where bursting out into song is completely normal. However, “Twelve Angry Jurors” is smaller, more cramped and more real. Ricks explains why he chose this play. “I read this play in 8th grade, and it was interesting,” Ricks explained. It was one of my first exposures to theater, having grown up in a small town, and it stuck with me. The question it asks is really good.”
“What is a human life, and what isn’t a human life? And, how important is that to us? I think it’s a good time for us to put that idea of ‘what is or isn’t life’ under a lens and really explore it, and see what happens when we do value it, or don’t.” Ricks had an ambitious goal to try and communicate that to the audience.
He needed a cast of actors that meshed well together. “We looked at their dramatic material, since a lot of our actors, including myself are quite comedic,” Ricks explained. C”What we don’t see a lot of in auditions is dramatic acting, and not necessarily melodrama, which is what many associate with drama, but instead that idea of ‘I’m a real human being, here’s my problems.’”
Moving forward with auditions, Ricks tried to find a group that worked well together, not just the skills of a single actor. “The thing with this show is that every character is pivotal. If you were walking into this production expecting a clear main character, you most certainly didn’t get one.”
To communicate this “real life” feeling of the play, Ricks made the decision to portray it differently than most people are used to, utilizing what is called “theater in the round,”where the audience surrounds the actors on all four sides.
“They’re on stage and sometimes about a foot away from the actors,” Ricks explained. “So, it really makes you feel like you’re in this room like a fly on the wall.”
Ricks explained the main theme that centered around the play. “The analogy we’re using in this play is time,” Ricks said. “Human life is time, and we’re using that specific analogy of human life and comparing it to a clock. Eventually the clock’s batteries are going to die, or it’s just going to stop all together, which means every moment you are alive you’re doing something. You’re doing your purpose.”
