Rose Bialk/The Mossy Log
On Friday, Nov. 7, Arts@LC, a cross-department initiative to support the arts programming at Lewis & Clark, hosted their monthly Watzek First Friday performance. Students from the course TH 313 Acting III: Style performed scenes from William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” in Watzek Library. The First Friday events in Watzek Library are short 15-minute demonstrations of various kinds of art on campus.
Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities Katherine FitzGibbon, who also serves as the co-director of Arts@LC, explained that the First Fridays started in Fall 2021 in order to bring the arts out of their independent departments and into the broader LC community.
“The idea is, with our Arts@LC initiative, we are trying to amplify and connect all of the arts that are happening on campus with both the broader campus community and with the community at large,” she said. “So this was one of the ideas that our steering committee came up with, which is, ‘What if we do a fun arts pop-up event in the library where it’s a common shared space, getting these arts happening out of their individual buildings and more into this community context?’”
The First Friday events take place at 3 p.m. on the first Friday of the month. They all take place in the Watzek atrium, which FitzGibbon explained is part of the appeal.
“(First Fridays) also feels a little subversive because sometimes we’re making a lot of noise in the library, but just for a short period of time,” she said.
At this particular event, students performed monologues from Hamlet they had been working on in the Acting III class. Cristi Miles, an adjunct instructor within the theatre department, expanded on the reasoning behind choosing Hamlet.
“The class is a style class,” Miles said. “We choose Shakespeare as the style, so heightened text, poetry and prose…We’re working on the monologues, which we will show on Friday at the library and then we’re going to move on and begin to stage a cutting of the whole play.”
The 15-minute performance began with Tanner Hansen ’26 performing Hamlet’s first soliloquy. He started the performance sitting down, leaning into Hamlet’s dejection at the beginning of the monologue. He then burst into an explosion of rage, despairing over his father’s death and his mother’s hasty remarriage. Hansen did a great job portraying the levels and intricacies of Hamlet’s emotions during the monologue.
Next, Sainaa Uppal ’27 performed a monologue as Horatio, recounting an event to Hamlet. Uppal made good use of movement and gestures to illustrate Horatio’s storytelling.
After Uppal’s performance, Quinn Newberry ’26 portrayed Laertes in a scene where he warns Ophelia not to become too entangled with Hamlet. Newberry gave an awkward but intense portrayal of the character which I found enjoyable.
In the next scene, Erin Connelly ’27 performed Polonius’ monologue to his son Laertes. The scene follows Polonius as he gives his son advice before going off into the world. While I might have preferred a lean into the more humorous, ironic element of Polonius’ platitudes, Connelly brought a nice sense of humanity to the monologue, taking a more tender tone at the famous line, “to thine own self be true.”
The next performance, a monologue by Hamlet, was split between two performers: Davis Berry ’27 and Angie Bennett ’28. The mid-monologue transition between the two was very well-executed, and I particularly enjoyed Bennett’s shift in tone as Hamlet goes from emotionally wavering to plotting his trap for the king.
In the final performance, Leila Kreitmann ’27 performed Hamlet’s monologue in the scene where he debates killing the king as he is praying, but ultimately decides against it. Kreitmann performed the monologue in French, wonderfully capturing Hamlet’s uncertainty and thought process as he decides to ultimately walk away from Claudius. Although I could not understand the exact words she was saying, her physical acting made it clear.
Both FitzGibbon and Miles expressed that they thought the First Fridays were an important way to increase arts visibility on campus.
“There’s so much art that happens around this campus in classes and in different departments,” Miles said. “With the Watzek First Fridays, you just get it chosen for you.”
FitzGibbon explained that there is an element of community that gets built when people are exposed to arts on campus.
“Having a shared encounter with the arts is, I think, part of what makes us feel like we’re in this kind of magical space together,” FitzGibbon said.
First Fridays provide students with a chance to take a break from their studying in the library and enjoy a snippet of art on campus that they may not have been aware of. Whether you just happen to be in the library or come to Watzek to enjoy the performance, I encourage students to tune in to the next First Friday event on Dec. 5, which will feature singer-songwriters on campus.
About the Author
