BYU-Hawaii’s Fall Play “The Real Inspector Hound,” was a success as it incorporated the “black box theater technique,” an interesting plot about murder mystery, and great actors, according to the cast and audience members.
Vya Sutton, a freshman from Virginia majoring in psychology, said she went to the play twice. “That’s how good it was,” she said. “The humor was funny, the farce was great, and it’s good for people who want to get into the plot. It is good for multiple levels of audiences.”
Student directors of the play, JennyLynn Jessup, a senior from Oregon studying elementary education, and Chris Cornelison, a sophomore from Hauula majoring in English, said they were surprised at how fast the tickets sold out. According to Jessup, the first four shows sold out in under three hours.
Jessup reported they got a lot of complaints and decided to include an encore performance. “People were disappointed they couldn’t come see the show, so we just messaged all the cast asking how they would feel about doing an extra performance, and they were all super enthusiastic about it.”
What made the play different was the use of the “black box theater technique,” said Jessup and Cornelison. This technique puts both the audience and actors on stage together, said Jessup.
“This is like black box theater on steroids because some of the actors aren’t even on the stage for the first half of the production,” said Dannia Tan, an actress in the play and a senior majoring in biology from Utah.
Tan thought the black box theater technique would “throw people off, but also make them focus a lot more. I think they’ll be more interested in the play just because they’ve never had that experience before.”
Derek Clarke, a freshman from California majoring in biomedicine, said the black box technique was intuitive. “I’ve been to many a plays before and many musicals, but I’ve never been up this close and personal with the cast. I enjoyed that.”
According to Michelle Blimes, the advising director, the play was written and based on a production by John Stafford. She said the story was complicated and had various layers of underlying meaning. “The cast had to delve into it to understand their parts. It was a dissecting process,” she said.
The play focused on two theater critics watching a play involving a murder mystery in the traditional audience seating. The twist of the play was when the film critics became a part of the play and unknowingly, become a part of the act.
An usher for the event, Karlmaine Revillo, a social work senior from the Philippines, said she could see the effort from the cast. “As an usher, we get to watch it multiple times and the story is interesting each time,” said Revillo. She added her favorite part was seeing the film critics become part of the play. “It was confusing and that made me excited to know the explanation.”
Carolyn Gibby, a sophomore majoring in biochemistry from Michigan who did make up for the play, said, “It was a lot of fun. I feel like we got really close as a cast and that just made it more fun. I think the whole production has gone very well and it was just such a great opportunity.”
Jessup and Cornelison agreed, “It was a better than we ever could’ve imagined… and the cast was amazing. They made our jobs easy,” said Cornelison.
Cornelison said the cast took the John Stafford play and made it their own through their own creativity and improvisation. “A lot of the ideas the cast came up with were fairly recent. They adopted things the last couple of weeks that really added a unique flavor to the production.”
Usher Benny Penuve, a senior from the Marshall Islands majoring in hospitality and tourism, said the stage was packed on the stairs. “People even tried to come buy tickets late at the actual show, but there wasn’t enough room for those who did have tickets much less more tickets to sell,” said Penuve.
Additional cast members not pictured on the right were Valorie Lafaele and Kirkham Dooley.
Writer: Mikaela Gray