Four Syracuse University drama students — Gabriel Girson, Daisha Abdillahi, Claire St. Marie and Jacob Rosen — are gearing up for their performance of “Shakes-Beer” at WT Brews on Sunday at 7 p.m. The event is hosted by the Baldwinsville Center for the Arts as part of its Winter Arts Series and will feature complimentary beer tasting.

Their rehearsal last Sunday night didn’t start until 9:30 p.m., since it was the only time that could work for the four of them.

“Jacob is in a show right now,” St. Marie said. “Daisha is also doing a show that’s touring at different elementary schools. Everyone is always just so busy in this department, and to be able to find those little pockets of time to be able to rehearse is so important.”

The four students serve as the directors, choreographers, designers and actors of the performance. Girson said that, despite the demanding schedule of the drama department, when he was first approached about the Shakes-Beer performance last year by the BCA, it was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

While working on BCA’s Ghost Walk last semester, Girson said he talked with the artistic director about his other interests and the two bonded over Shakespeare. Following winter break, he said he got an email from the artistic director asking if he would be interested in working with other SU students to put the Shakespearean show together.

Girson reached out to Abdillahi, St. Marie and Rosen to help set up and act in “Shakes-Beer,” with them eventually coming up with a structure for their performance.

Abdillahi (left), Girson and St. Marie rehearse a scene from this weekend’s Shakespearean performance as part of the Baldwinsville Center for the Arts’ Winter Arts Series. Mateo Estling | Staff Writer

“We decided to put it into three different sections,” Abdillahi said. “About love and lust, villainy, and then taking the piece ‘All the World’s a Stage’ and making that into a whole section.”

Instead of performing a full Shakespeare play, “Shakes-Beer” will serve as a greatest-hits tour of the Bard, with each scene corresponding to one of the three sections.

The first act, love and lust, will feature scenes from “Romeo and Juliet” and “All’s Well that End Well.” The second act covers the villains of Shakespeare’s work, including Iago from “Othello” and “Richard the III.” But it’s the final act that the four said is the most intriguing.

The final act will be referred to as the “seven stages of man,” from Shakespeare’s soliloquy, “All the World’s a Stage.” The act has the character talking about the seven different stages of life a man goes through, Girson said. For each stage of life, he added, the characters perform a different monologue that compliments it.

Going scene to scene from many different Shakespeare plays might be confusing for the audience, and the actors said it’s up to them to show the audience what’s going on. But they said it’s less about the characters being portrayed and more about the themes and the actors doing the work.

“We are playing the characters,” Rosen said. “But we are also, in a very real sense, playing ourselves. There is so much ebb and flow in the characters.”

Published on February 19, 2019 at 9:03 pm

Contact Mateo: mtestlin@syr.edu