Multimedia Club performance: replay the classics
On Thursday the Theatre Arts and Communication Arts MultiMedia Club hosted a show of scenes and synopses from classics in the world of film and television. This included a shortened version of “And Then There Were None,” a murder mystery by Agatha Christie; an episode of “I Love Lucy”; and brief moments from the Hitchcock films “The Birds” and “Psycho.” Each of these was performed in different rooms on the first floor of the Saddleback Library.
While the audience waited to be guided to the performing stage, they were given a crossword puzzle relating to the author, his or her work, or the performance they were about to see. They were then split between the three rooms and rotated throughout the show.
The most advertised of the performances, “And Then There Were None,” had the most actors, and played out the major events from the famous story of “Murder In a Manor.” Cutting the whole of the tale down to a span of about 15 minutes meant that much of the material relating to the rhyme “10 Little Indians,” a common thread of the book, was left out, save a mention near the end. Still, the piece was a fair re-enactment of the story and kept to the heart of the mystery while dealing with the mysterious deaths cropping up at the party the characters attended.
They ended with depictions of scenes from two of Hitchcock’s most famous films, “Psycho” and “The Birds.” These seemed to keep closest to the original script they were pulling from and might have been the strongest for the lack of adaptation. They even included clips from the movies themselves.
While it shouldn’t be a surprise that students wouldn’t live up to the work of the classic works, it left many in the audience with the desire to see those old movies instead. This might have been the point.
Part of the event was meant to bring awareness to a walkathon called “Back on Track.” The fundraiser, to be held the following Saturday, was to gather money to aid the Adapted Kinesiology Programs for Saddleback and Irvine Valley colleges, recently hit with budget cuts from the schools. These programs help provide students in wheelchairs or with other disabilities with high quality physical education and support. They hoped to raise $20,000 to make up for the cuts.