By Destiny Carter |Staff Writer|
The cast and crew of “The Arabian Nights” did not anticipate the amount of preparation needed to properly execute their play.
The Theatre Arts department concluded their 11th performance of the play “The Arabian Nights” at the Palm Desert Campus on Sunday April 10.
The play consisted of 16 talented cast members, most of whom have been with the theatre arts department for some time.
Bradley Peck is a senior on campus with “Arabian Nights” being his fifth play.
Peck found that the hardest part about being in the play was learning the Arabic culture.
Something they worked on all quarter was learning phrases, words, and proper dance styles.
“We had an Arabic professor (Nabila Land) who came in every week explaining what each Arabic word meant and the proper way to pronounce it. As well as show us how to properly move and dance,” stated the actor.
Freshman Chiyako Nelson found that the hardest part for her was getting the choreography down.
“Mostly due to spacing and that our choreographer couldn’t always be there was the hardest part for me,” said Nelson.
When asked what his favorite scene was, Peck said, “The perfidy of wives.”
This scene was where he played the Jester and got cheated on by his wife who he was forced to marry.
“It’s my favorite because comedy is my specialty, my first line as the Jester allows me to improv and with the help of my friend I did just that,” said Peck
Peck had many opportunities where he could say whatever he wanted as long as it fit in that specific time era.
Nelson also found her favorite scene to be the first part of “The Perfidy of Wives,” although she was not in the scene and watched from an audience perspective.
“Every time one of the lovers came out, I cracked up no matter how many times I saw it. They could always get me to laugh,” stated Nelson.
An obstacle that Peck overcame during his time with this particular play was to stay focused and look as believable as he could while being on stage for practically the whole show.
All of his parts were really physical and active and he would get tired and start sweating, luckily he had moments where he could sit and take a breather on stage allowing him to catch his breath.
“Usually we get to exit and take a breather and then re-enter for our next scene, this was a different story,” stated Peck.
Chiyako found that her biggest obstacle was learning her lines and getting them down.
“I had huge paragraphs full of lists…I’ve had roles in the past that had long paragraphs but I had never had lines that were so wordy and factual, but I was able to get over that obstacle and got all my lines down,” said Nelson.
Overall, the actors found this play to be very enjoyable and challenging at the same time.
Be sure to check the Theatre Arts website, theatre.csusb.edu, for more information on upcoming plays and events.
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