Augie’s “Speaking in Tongues” Rescheduled for Friday, Feb. 19
The brave new world of streaming theater seems to be cursed for Rock Island’s Augustana College.
First last August, they had a derecho sweep through the area, forcing postponement of a Zoom reading of “For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday.” In the fall, the college had a transformer next to Centennial Hall catch on fire, knocking out power and internet moments
Jackie McCall is Brunner Theatre Center outreach coordinator.
before “Doctor Faustus” was supposed to start streaming.
And now, on Feb. 12, a nationwide technical glitch caused the online Showtix4U platform to stop working for tens of thousands of customers — including all of Augustana patrons who were planning to watch “Speaking in Tongues” on Friday night.
“We cannot catch a break,” Jackie McCall, Brunner Theatre outreach coordinator, said on Monday. So that filmed production has been rescheduled to this Friday, Feb. 19 at 7:30 p.m. If people had a link, it should still work, she said, “but we’re also hoping to gain a few more audience members for the new date. Never a dull moment.”
Directed by Augie senior James Wheeler (in his directorial debut), the four-actor show was performed Jan. 28-31 at the Brunner Black Box Theatre, and had Augie students working with Fresh Films do the filming and editing for the streaming version.
“I really feel they did a very nice job with it,” McCall said last week. All actors wore clear masks for performances (plus crew and audience were required to wear masks), which “really helped the audience enjoy the show more fully,” she said. “I also think it’s easier to understand what people are saying.”
For staging, the actors were socially distanced, and the story itself lent itself to that, McCall said.
“I think James did a great job in using the distance to his advantage, to create tension. There were very few times I was conscious of the fact
“Speaking in Tongues” has been rescheduled for streaming this Friday, Feb. 19.
that they were socially distanced. I really was blown away, and I saw it live. It was the first live show I had seen in a long time.”
A summary of Andrew Bovell’s “Speaking in Tongues” (in which each actor plays more than one role) says: “Nine parallel lives, four interlocked infidelities, one missing person, and a mysterious stiletto are all woven together in this electrifying psychological thriller.”
“Speaking in Tongues” (which debuted in 1996) starts with two married couples, and other characters the actors embody are related to them in unexpected ways, McCall said.
In late October, the Brunner Black Box hosted a small cast version of “The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus” by Christopher Marlowe that starred students Lauren Larson as Faustus and Alyssa Frazier as Mephistopheles, directed by senior theater major SophiaRose Brown.
The recorded virtual performance (also done by Augustana-based Fresh Films) was shown online on Nov. 7, after a very brief delay from a power outage.
“Speaking in Tongues” will be streamed at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 19. Tickets are $8, available at https://www.showtix4u.com/event-details/46786.
