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THEY SAID IT “Give what you have. To someone, it pa e ^ may be better than you dare to think." Friday, February 4, 2005 HENRY WADSW0RTH L0NGFELE™ ■.. .... .... . PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE GAMECOCK USC’s operatic adaptation of the Shakespearean comedy, ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor,’ will be performed at the Keenan Theatre on Pinebelt Road tonight and Sunday. Opera at USCgives modern twist to Shakespeare By MARIA CHARLES THE GAMECOCK Opera at USC will bring to life an updated version of Otto Nicolai’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” with two performances this weekend. As part of the season’s series of “Farcical Fare,” the Merry Wives will vary from its original Elizabethan plot and instead take place in America during the 1950s. The opera, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy by the same name, tells the tale of Jack FalstafF as he pursues love. FalstafF, a character who appeared in an earlier Shakespeare play, “Henry IV, part 1,” sends the same love letter to two married women. Alice Ford and Meg Page compare identical letters, catch on to FalstafFs deceit and ultimately plot revenge in order to prevent any more of FalstafFs advances and placate their jealous husbands. For Opera at USC Director Ellen Schlaefer, the story spurred images of the quintessential comedic characters of the 1950s. “Two scheming women and their unaware husbands remind me of Lucy and Ethel from the great TV comedy ‘I Love Lucy,’” Schlaefer said. Falstaff s character also provided ‘50s-era inspiration. “Overweight and pompous John Falstaff reminded me of the comedian Jackie Gleason,” Schlaefer said. The opera was originally produced in 1849 and followed a more traditional Shakespearean setting. Adding a new twist, Schlaefer opted to set the opera in Windsor, Conn. Having worked in Connecticut, she remembered a town with the same name as the English town where Shakespeare’s play took place. “Why not set the opera in America?” Schlaefer said. Bringing a mid-century town to life, the chorus includes a carhop, a Fuller Brush salesman and milkman. By presenting the opera in a different time period, Schlaefer said she hopes to pull in a broader audience that can relate more so with American culture than old English. She also feels the opera’s comedic tone makes the performance approachable to a wider audience. “(Merry Wives) is accessible music. It’s comedy,” Schlaefer said. There will be no fat ladies with horns.” Schlaefer said she hopes students will attend the performance. “It’s something everyone should try,” she said. The performances are set for tonight at 7:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. Sunday at the Keenan Theatre on Pinebelt Road in Columbia. Tickets are $5 for students and senior citizens and $10 for the public. “It’s cheap and there is easy parking,” Schlaefer said. “You may be seeing future opera stars.” FalstafF will be played by F. Marc Rattray, Lexington Youth Chorale director and director of music at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church. Alice Ford will be played by Andrea Price Baxley of West Columbia, and graduate student Britnee Siemon will play Meg Page. Their respective husbands will be played by graduate students Raphael Rada and G. Scott Wild. Graduate students Lisa Sain Odom and Jaeyoon Kim will take on the roles of Ann, the daughter of the Pages, and Fenton, her suitor. About 50 former and current USC students are participating in the opera, and some will be involved in various comedic acts. “I’ve got people dumped in laundry baskets, men dressed as women gypsies and people dressed up in dog costumes,” Schlaefer said. “Not the things you normally think of in opera.” Comments on this story ? E-mail ga7nec0ckfeatures@gwm.sc. edu BOOK REVIEW 'Boarding school never seemed so cool “PREP” By Curtis Sittenfeld ★★★★ out of ☆☆☆☆☆ By JENNIFER FREEMAN THE GAMECOCK High-school drama, crushes, first relationships, worries about not having money next to your rich classmates. This isn’t the latest episode of “The O.C." It’s “PREP,” the new novel by Curtis Sittenfield about Lee Fiora, an Indiana girl going to boarding school at the fictional Ault School outside Boston. Lee is an average girl who gets the idea to go to hoarding school from an offhand comment by her father about rich men sending their sons away to school. Once she gets accepted on scholarship and arrives in New England, she discovers that the glamorous image in her head isn’t remotely correct. Lee starts off her high-school career blending into the wall and doesn’t move very far from that wall during her career at Ault, but finally manages to disrupt the entire school by graduation. Lee’s greatest difficulty is in making friends. Her inner dialogue is wracked with1 insecurity and hesitation that epitomizes teen angst. “I was terrified of unwittingly leaving behind a piece of scrap paper on which were written all my private desires and humiliations. The fact that no such scrap of paper existed ... never decreased my fear.” She idolizes her classmates who seem to effortlessly do everything right and look beautiful while doing it. Many times the reader sees an opening for Lee to make a friend, but is left disappointed in the character when she lets the opportunity go by. P 0p Curtis sittenfeld Sometimes the people who stand back and watch the world seem to understand it better than the people in the thick of things. “PREP” is Lee Fiora's story, but the reader gains an intimate knowledge of Lee’s classmates, family, teachers and even cafeteria workers through her inner musings. We meet senior prefects Henry Thorpe and Gates Medkowski, the seemingly perfect girl who makes Lee question her sexuality, the “cool black guy” Darden Pittard, and Tullis Haskell, the guy with long hair who plays James Taylor at the school talent show. This wouldn’t be any kind of coming-of-age novel without the requisite high-school crush. Of course Lee falls in love with the most popular, athletic and handsome boy in school. She spends four years pining after Cross Sugarman, coming up with far-fetched plans to come into contact with him. Fortunately, the book contains more than Lee’s disappointments and failures. Lee sees herself as unattractive and unpopular, but the reader has the perspective to see the fallacy in that. Once Lee gets past her original awkwardness, she gains the courage to make a few friends. She holds on to a ♦ Please see PREP, page 6 Charily concert to benefit food bank By B.K. KENNEDY THE GAMECOCK The fifth annual Harvest Hope Food Bank Drive will begin tonight at New Brookland Tavern. On tap to perform are MiKenPike, Columbia’s Clayton Ravine and Dogwood Saint. Their mission is to provide “for the needs of hungry people by gathering and sharing quality food with dignity, compassion and education.” The event has previously featured notable local musicians such as Isabelle’s Gift, and members of Hootie & the Blowfish. The reason will raise awareness, food and money for the Harvest Hope Food Bank The bands are New Brookland Tavern regulars. Gary Williams, organizer of the show, said they try to pick an interesting line-up that will attract a large crowd of people to help donate to Harvest Hope. This is usually a rough time of year for Harvest Hope since the holiday season just ended, and people tend to do most of their giving at that time. “This is a bad time of year for them. They tend to get neglected, and their stocks run low,” Williams said, “The event tends to do pretty well and get a lot of support.” v j HARVES1 hop: FOOD BANK He added that they have a wish-list of the most useful items, which includes canned meat and fish, peanut butter in plastic jars, canned vegetables and fruits, canned soup, macaroni and cheese, baby food and canned beans. MiKenPike, a Columbia based band, shares a sound similar to that of O.A.R. While most bands in the genre appeal to both the mainstream and the counterculture, MiKenPike has been able to find their niche straddling that line appealing to the masses. Clayton Ravine has a sound more rooted in rock ‘n’ roll. This quartet has more of a modern mainstream sound and has shared the stage with bands such as VH1 Band on the Run winner Flickerstick, Crossfade, Athenaeum, and Angie Aparo and the Infidels, with whom they have an upcoming show. Dogwood Saint is a new band whose sound is similar to MiKenPike’s. However, they rely more on the sound of acoustic K guitars than their counterparts in MiKenPike. |r “Usually we have more than I three bands,” Williams said. “Last ^ year we had both hip-hop and jam ^ bands, along with live DJ sets.” ^ This year volunteers from sororities will help out along with sponsors from local restaurants and bars such as Cafe Strudel, Minglewood and Bar None. Previous records include collecting $800 and three pickup trucks worth of food. The show begins at 9:30 p.m. after an earlier show featuring Anberlin. Anberlin has said it would also accept food and donations at its show, but admission cannot be traded for donations. Admission to the all-ages event is $5 or five canned goods. Donations can be accepted beginning at 2 p.m. Comments on this story? E-mail ga7nec0ctfeatures@gwm.sc. edu