Students create musical to call their own

By Sophia Whang
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

No one suspected that playing an heiress or a devil would be so
rewarding.

To a group of UCLA students, the production of Christian
Dietrich Grabbe’s “Jest, Satire, Irony, and Deeper
Meaning,” is giving them the experience they’ve always
wanted. As one of the activities designed by a faculty in
residence, English professor Frederick Burwick, the UCLA Office of
Residential Life and the Hedrick Hall Residents Association allows
students to become directors, designers and actors in a production
they are calling their own.

Having adapted the original play into a musical, students were
put to the test in cooperation, management and creativity ““
talents that they will exhibit in the performances this
weekend.

“We tweaked a bunch of things, added extra lines for
characters and added twists, it makes it a lot more fun,”
said Emily Rolph, director of “Jest” and second-year
ethnomusicology student. “I like to think that we added some
improvements to it. And everyone in the cast took on their own
character and really made it their own.”

Burwick approached Rolph about the daunting position of director
after seeing her work as the music coordinator of “Parachute
Kid,” a musical put together last year by the Chinese Student
Association. Now she has the opportunity to not only arrange music,
but oversee an entire production.

“I think it’s a really good experience, especially
for those students who are not in the theater department and may
not get the chance to normally perform,” Rolph said.

While Rolph took on the role of director, Ai Yokoyama became a
costume designer, sometimes sewing original creations, and Jen
Kwock-Lau became a music director, jazzing up the music taken from
an opera by Carl Maria von Weber.

“Helping out with the songs was very challenging
’cause we had to adapt it from the opera,” said
Kwock-Lau, a fourth-year economics student. “So organizing
the music and teaching the singers the songs was my job
here.”

“It’s been a really great learning experience.
Everyone is so talented, it’s amazing,” Kwock-Lau
added.

Burwick, who acts as the dramaturge and adviser to
“Jest,” chose this particular play because of its
relevance to college life.

The playwright, who was recently recognized in a bicenntenial
celebration of his birth, wrote “Jest” when he was a
21-year-old student at the University of Berlin; he included jokes
about the university and its students. The Weber opera was also
chosen specifically because it was written at the same time and
place as the play, and because Grabbe included jokes about the
opera in “Jest.”

This is Burwick’s fifth year putting on a production with
ORL but his first musical. He thinks the music adds a certain
dazzle and that the new twists and surprising perversions bring
even more humor to the play.

“The Office of Residential Life has funding to support the
creative arts and we have the opportunity here to draw on a lot of
the talent among our residence,” Burwick said.

THEATER: “Jest, Satire, Irony, and Deeper
Meaning,” will play at the UCLA Northwest Campus Auditorium
tonight and tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday at 2:30 p.m.
There will also be a performance at the Balch Auditorium, Scripps
College, Claremont, on March 7 at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free.