Mystic Scotland brought to life

All of the audience members get quiet and bagpipes go silent as the lights go down. The theater seats are packed with students, children, townsfolk and a surplus of bald old men, with big white beards.  The red curtains of the Wayne S. Knutson Theatre open to light of the Scottish Highlands, both green and deep blue. Out of the fog that blankets the stage, silhouetted children are playing and laughing. Faint music lingers in the air. You have just entered the world of “Brigadoon,” presented by the University of South Dakota’s Department of Theatre.

The story of “Brigadoon” centers on two American tourists, Tommy Albright and Jeff Douglass, who have traveled to the Scottish highlands on a game hunting vacation, only to get lost on their first night out. When they begin to hear music coming from a nearby village, they decide to investigate. What they discover is the magical and enchanting village of Brigadoon.

The village is in the midst of a fair. Two villagers, the suave Charlie Darlymple and lovely Bonnie Jean are getting married, and the whole village is preparing for the wedding. After introducing themselves to the locals, Tommy falls in love with the beautiful Fiona MacLaren and the lusty milkmaid Meg Brockie sets her sights on Jeff. Tommy reveals to Fiona that he is not marrying his fiancée because he isn’t truly in love with her. However, Jeff doesn’t share Tommy’s sentiment and wishes for nothing but to return home.

Not all is what it seems in this enchanting village. As it turns out, none of the villagers of Brigadoon are allowed to leave because two-hundred years earlier the village pastor prayed to God to make the village disappear, only to reappear for one day every one-hundred years.  Tommy’s resolve is shattered when Jeff convinces him that the village of Brigadoon is too absurd to really exist and can therefore only be a dream. In the end, Tommy must choose between returning to the modern world and marrying his fiancée Jane – or staying in the fantastical village of Brigadoon and falling further in love with Fiona.

“Brigadoon” was originally written in 1947 by playwright Alan Jay Lerner with music by Frederick Loewe. It is a musical born out of the very beginnings of the Cold War, when in the United States, the sense of hope started to diminish as the threat of annihilation by atomic bombs was on everyone’s minds.

USD student and dramaturg Annamarie Trevvett summarized the musical in the program by saying “Post-war Americans were given ‘Brigadoon,’ a show that offered hopefulness to a desolate community and provided audience members a night of entertainment and escapism.” Threads of Cold War conflict permeate throughout the whole story from Jeff stating that his wife ran off with a Russian, to the isolationism of the village of Brigadoon. However, many of these antiquated themes are still relevant today.

“What we found pretty quickly and what the students found was all of the issues dealt within the show are very current and relevant,” stage and music director Matt Nesmith said. “It’s human nature. Human nature tends not to change even though how we communicate it sometimes changes.”

In USD’s incarnation of “Brigadoon,” sophomore Andy Hanson plays the lead role of Tommy Albright.

“It has been a really fun part and I am glad I was able to be a part of this great project,” Hanson, a philosophy major, asid.

“We welcomed folks from all over the campus to audition and participate and their work’s been phenomenal,” Nesmith said.

Sophomore and musical theatre major Emily Vortherms plays the character of Fiona MacLaren.

“My favorite thing about this show, and really any show that we do here at USD, is being surrounded by and getting to enjoy the talents of all the amazing people in this department,” she said. “We have some really spectacular people backstage and behind the scenes that make this show truly visually stunning, and I am so honored to be on such a beautiful stage surrounded by such talented people.”

One striking feature of the musical is the large number of props and scenery used.

“At intermission we actually have to move scenery back to the scene shop,” said Tim Case, the man in charge of the productions scenic design.

From the opening title card, to the music and the costumes: the production team went for the feel of a traditional “Brigadoon” production.

“We went for a style of a theatrical production similar to one directly from 1947,” said Case.

The opening of the play is something not seen in most theatrical productions. USD’s “Brigadoon” begins more like a movie than a musical. The opening of the musical is like something taken right out of a classic Technicolor film. The effect had some audience members talking.

“I thought it was different,” senior Jordan Foye said. “I thought ‘Wow! This is like a movie, they must have put a lot of work into this. It probably got a lot of people’s attention right off the bat.”

“It is an homage to the movie, especially the opening,” Case said. “We used a scrim and had projectors project light on either side to create the effect we wanted.”

Several student assistants also helped create the scenery and effects. This is actually Case’s last year as a professor at USD, after more than two decades of teaching.

“This play was very taxing on time, but I’m very proud of how they’ve done,” Case said.

A lot of preparation was done for this musical. This was especially difficult for students and faculty as finals week approached

“For the past 24 out of 25 days, I’ve worked 12 hours a day,” Case said.

The Theatre Department put on a total of five performances between Nov. 29 and Dec. 2, each of those requiring a lot of time and energy from the students.

“Since we spend about three hours a night in rehearsal every day, it got a little stressful at times, but that’s one of the things you need to learn to balance when you’re a theater major,” Vortherms said.

Hanson also said stress is a prominent factor in preparing for a performance.

“I would say that rehearsals have just become a part of my routine,” he said. “After it is all over, I will have time to realize how stressful it was.”

None of the hard work put forth by the students went unnoticed by the audience or the staff.

“We rehearse 15 to 20 hours a week for, in this case, almost two months,” Nesmith said. “So, that time commitment: to learn music, dancing, acting and blocking – all of those things are time intensive, but I think the results are evident in what they are doing this weekend.”