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Hero saves famous
literary figures
Yahya Alqahtani / The Torch
Actors from “Eyre Affair” perform in last Monday’s dress rehearsal. The show turned the inside of the Studio Theatre into a bookcase and also featured dramatic lighting and original music.
Valpo Department
of Theatre to hold
performances over
next two weekends
Emily Doherty
Torch A&E Editor
The “Eyre Afair” by Jasper
Fforde is a New York Times bestselling novel in which a literary
detective seeks to stop a master
criminal in a parallel universe.
The play is set to come to Valparaiso University theatre with new
scenes, characters and plot twists.
Director Austin Tichenor
brings this novel to life in his very
own stage adaptation. Literary
detective Thursday Next is on a
mission to ind a literary kidnapper to stop them from committing homicides in various novels
to prevent history from changing
drastically. While a few scenes are
a direct adaptation from the novel, the majority of them have been
remastered by Tichenor, creating
a unique experience for Valpo’s
Department of Theatre.
Jane Eyre, played by Natalia
Terzic, is one of the main characters who gets kidnapped from her
novel, “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte
Brontë. Terzic will additionally
play eight other minor characters
throughout the performance, a
common theme for each actor in
the show.
“When I switch characters, I
take a second to shake of the irst
character’s personality before I go
out and play the next one,” Terzic
said. “One of my characters easily
ly’s of the handle and is a very
‘adult popular cheerleader’ type,
and then my main character Jane
is the complete opposite. When
I feel the strong distinction between characters, I know I’m doing something right.”
Each character has a strong
level of uniqueness and a prominent personality. The cast and
crew have been practicing different patterns of speech, quirks,
walking and costuming for the
past couple of months. The show
itself is set to be cinematic, with
more than 150 changes in sound
and lighting. Mary Atchley is responsible for the lighting on the
set of “Eyre Afair” and Chris
Gierymski is responsible for the
sound.
“They’ve done incredible
things,” Terzic said. “The multi
levels of lighting and sound add
to the show and make it unique.”
For director Austin Tichenor, this
is his irst stint at Valparaiso University. “Usually the director is a
Valpo professor who has always
been doing college theatre and
they have a very set structure,”
Terzic said. “This is not a bad
thing, but Tichenor really gives
us a new perspective on the performance art. “He has such a clear
direction of what he wants certain
characters to act. He gives a lot of
insight since he wrote the parts of
the script himself.”
The “Eyre Afair” performances are being held over the duration of two weekends beginning
Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday and
Sunday at 2 p.m., April 8 at 8 p.m.
and April 9-10 at 2 p.m. in the Studio Theatre.
Contact Emily Doherty at
[email protected].