Chip Rome likes a challenge. And in his 24rd year teaching drama at Robinson Secondary, Rome has definitely found one.
Robinson Drama will be performing "Metamorphoses," or "Morph" for short, as its spring production, from April 28-30.
The play’s most identifiable feature is its set — the centerpiece of which is a 12-foot square pool of water which is 18 inches at its deepest point.
"This whole play is about transformation, and water as a metaphor for change and rebirth is so essential to the basic message of the story that it gets used like emotion, the more passionate people get, the deeper in the water that they go," said Rome. "So we need to have a pool."
Written by Tony-award winning playwright Mary Zimmerman, "Morph" is so new it wasn’t technically published when Rome set his sights on it. So he contacted her agent to acquire the rights to perform it, knowing the time and work which would be needed to make "Morph" a reality on the Robinson stage.
"I’ve learned that high school kids will rise to any challenge I set for them," Rome said.
Junior Eric Honour, who was a "newbie" to stage design a year ago and got his feet wet with last spring’s production of "Golden Hills," was chomping at the bit to design the set for "Morph" after he read the script in January.
"I was initially attached to one of the other scripts, but I saw it and I was thinking ‘Wow, a pool on stage, hmmm,’" said Honour.
THE CAST AND CREW first held a series of "table talks" so that all who would be involved in the production could offer input in a collaborative environment. That helped, said Honour, since the only other pictures he had seen were of productions of "Morph" on stages which were different shapes from Robinson’s stage, which has a "truss" extending into the audience at the front.
"All the ones I saw were performed on very traditional stages, or were performed in an arena setting with people on all sides," said Honour.
So Honour went to work designing a stage, and the cast began rehearsals in the school’s "black box" with a mock-up of the set built from tables and benches. The final design will have the pool as a square, rotated to form a diamond, with one of the points extending out onto the truss. The pool itself will have three different depths, from six to 18 inches, and the entire structure will be two feet tall. At the back of the pool will be two ladders leading up to a "god bridge" which rises above the stage for the actors playing the gods.
"The set is the picture frame. It’s challenging for the actors, because they basically have this diamond shape they have to travel," said Rome. "The stairs were pretty much at the request of the actors, because they needed more levels to be able to operate on."
As rehearsals wore on, the set began to evolve, and certain elements, such as the width of the pool deck, also had to be adapted according to the requests of the actors.
"ONE OF THE THINGS I’ve been delighted about with Eric is he’s been here at rehearsal. We’ve discovered what works great on paper doesn’t work for the actors," said Rome. "His watching what the actors are trying to attempt has made it infinitely easier to communicate how important different aspects of the set are to adjust one way or another."
One of the biggest challenges will be making sure, once the pool is built and filled on stage, the water inside stays inside, and stays untainted. Rome said he was confident high school hijinks wouldn’t be an issue.
"The cast is so invested in this show that we’re not going to mess with it, and they’ve already been read the riot act about dumping bubble bath or Jell-O in there," he said.
And for the actors, a cast of 10 male and 10 female roles, getting the chance to be in the water, as well as in the cutting-edge drama, was too great to pass up.
"I read it at first and I realized ‘Oh my God, we have to do this,’" said Meredith Sottili, a senior from Fairfax Station. "Water imagery is a big thing in a lot of different literature, and to take that idea and put it on a stage for the audience to see … people interacting, it’s an amazing thing to me. For us to do it in a high school is an amazing thing. It’s ambitious, but I think we can do it."