LYDIA TURCIOS
Art Director
Is that the call of the great beyond, or an operatic high C?
Trick question; it’s both!
The SUNY Fredonia Performing Arts Company has just wrapped up their rendition of “The Dolls of New Albion: A Steampunk Opera,” an audioplay written by Paul Shapera.
This opera follows four generations of the McAlistair family in the fictional city of New Albion, where teenagers commit grand theft with a mouse named Sam, alchemists craft pearls from young girls’ dreams and Annabel McAlistair is raising up the dead. Specifically, Annabel is raising up her old crush and shoving him into a hunk of metal and gears. That’s sure not to have any lasting consequences.
This is a play about hope and loss and mistakes that domino across generations. PAC captured the darkly comedic and tragic tone of this piece exceedingly well; do note, this play is certainly a tragedy.
A repeated motif through the songs is the phrase, “All that comforts is not true and all you love does not love you.” A beautiful lyric, of course, that emphasizes the mishandling of love by many of the characters.
The costuming was a bright point as a viewer, with the majority of the cast decked out in dreary grays and blacks. Junior theater arts and psychology double major, Tina Mistric, offered comment as the costume designer. “It’s hard to work on a show with a large cast on a budget of a few hundred dollars.” However, she continued, “It’s always fun to pick at peoples’ wardrobes and see what they have to put together. It’s fun to create a concept and see what we come up with.”
A clever aspect that was noticeable during the play was the color coding of the characters’ clothes to their personalities. It emphasized the difference between the darker and depressed Voodoopunk cultist Amelia (played by Taryn Feuer) who wears black lace and leather, and the kind hearted sacrificial heroine Priscilla (played by Alina Wiley) who is the only character in the cast to wear all white.
“I’m really glad that came off well!” said Mistric about the outcome of the costuming. “Priscilla’s outfit actually went through the most changes. We really wanted to emphasize her differences.”
One of the most compelling performances was by sophomore musical theater major Zach Liddick as Jasper, the unfortunate object of the McAlisters family’s affections. Brought back from death to inhabit a mechanical body, the role includes a lot of standing around and distinctly not reacting. As much of the plot revolves around Jasper’s lack of emotional response and engagement to those obsessed with him, most of his time on stage is spent in a total deadpan.
Liddick offered a tidbit that added new depth to the performance. “It was super hard to play a character that is motionless. However, every time I felt something, I would shake my right hand.”
He added that in the play’s universe, the right hand’s trembling is the curse of bringing Jasper back. “So, that’s why everyone who is connected to Jasper shakes their right hand when they come near him.”
Liddick was thankful for the opportunity to tell this story, even though it was hard to stay in soft focus for the majority of the performance. “It made it that much better when I did get to move!”
The set was simple and well thought out. To emphasize the drab steampunk tone of the play, the set was composed of several painted tarps covered in names of the characters, arc words and symbols important to the plot. It served as an excellent backdrop for the colorful cast and allowed the ensemble to shine without distraction.
A group that appears throughout the play are the Voodoopunks, mentioned here for the prop specific to their scenes — white powder that the characters repeatedly threw in the air to represent their drug binges. Besides adding dimension to the choreography, the powder when thrown up in the air caught in the spotlights and made glimmery clouds that emphasized the disjointed nature of the Voodoopunk scenes.
The powder was only the most flashy of the props, with others including the representation of the Dolls bodies: skeletal arrangements resembling mounted skulls and several live instrumental scenes that showed off the actors musical prowess.
The production was a commendable and refreshing performance to attend. “The Dolls of New Albion: A Steampunk Opera” was very different compared to other musical productions as it is a smaller and lesser known opera. If you didn’t get a chance to see it yourself, make sure to keep an eye out for future PAC productions — they’re sure to impress.