“Our 21st century experiences of the horrors of domestic hostility, political animosity, unending war and ethnic cleansing make this classic drama disturbingly familiar and thought-provoking,” Michael Gillepsie said, director of Varner Studio Theatre’s performance of Arthur Miller’s “After the Fall.”

The play debuted on Nov. 11 and will continue till Nov. 21. Three OU students take the lead in the performance to transform the theater back to the 20th century and the mind of the main character, Quentin.

For ticket information and show times for the performances, visit www.oakland.edu/mtd

Grant Drager

–Quentin

Senior musical theater major Grant Drager describes his character Quentin as a man that has to re-evaluate his life after two failed marriages, as he contemplates entering a third.

“Quentin has reached a point where he doesn’t know how to continue to go on without sorting out what has happened in the past,” Drager said.

In order to prepare for the role,  which was double-cast between Drager and David Meese, he looked at each part of the story to understand where his character was coming from, to “become” who he was.

“All of us can relate to failed relationships and afterwards having to ask the question, ‘Whose fault was it? How do you go on?'” Drager said.

The 79-page script is full of long monologues and dialogue that required a significant amount of time to rehearse.

“This has been the hardest semester I’ve had,” Drager said, in regards to balancing his school and social life on top of the rehearsal schedule.

He thinks that despite the serious subject matter of the play, the audience will find something to relate to.

“There’s something so real about it in the sense that we all experience loss and we all have these questions of, ‘How do you go on?’ It’s so relevant.”

Emily Sorensen

–Maggie

The character of Maggie is based on Miller’s second wife, Marilyn Monroe, a role that senior musical theater major Emily Sorensen has enjoyed researching.

“You don’t often get to play characters that are based off of real people,” Sorensen said. “An article in Vanity Fair just came out last month with a spread of Marilyn Monroe’s diary, so I actually got to read her diary and know her thoughts before I actually had to play her. That was really lucky.”

The diary revealed a side of Monroe that many hadn’t seen before and that offered a new view of her character.

“I just can not look at her the same way anymore,” she said. “She talks abut how she screams and she doesn’t  want life to come any closer but it always does.”

Sorensen translated the emotion in Monroe’s diary to her character Maggie on stage.

“It’s hard to play,” Sorensen said. “It’s hard to go to those places every night.”

Shes hopes that the play will be able reach out to audience and urge them to reevaluate their life and their relationships with other people.

“A show like this is not just for entertainment,” Sorensen said. “It’s for changing lives. It sends a message to people.”

David Meese

–Quentin

In order to prepare for the role of Quentin, senior acting major David Meese jokes that he slept with his script under his pillow at night.

“The character has the most spoken words than any other character in any other show – even more than Hamlet,” Meese said. “Repetition,  repetition, repetition. That’s all I can say.”

Meese worked closely with costar Emily Sorensen and director Michael Gillespie to  collaborate ideas, and considers the last scene one of his favorites.

“The final scene is this climactic battle with his second wife Maggie. It’s emotional. It’s a physical scene,” Meese said. “The tension in the audience — it’s like nobody’s breathing. I love that scene.”

He estimates that over 20 hours a week was spent rehearsing.

“Luckily, being a theater major, I have theater classes and all of our professors are very understanding of our schedules,” Meese said.

With the first weekend of performances finished, he is confident with the success of the play.

“It was a phenomenal experience. Everybody is so committed and dedicated to this,” Meese said. “Everyone has had good things to say about it.”