Bridget B. Winston, Staff Writer
Herald-Journal
Spartanburg, SC

The play is called "Polaroid Stories." Two directors hope the snapshot is just part of a larger picture.

Mark Ferguson, a Wofford College drama professor and director of the Wofford Theater Workshop, and an old graduate school friend, Emmanuel Gaillot, have launched the International Theatre Development Project, which will be based at Wofford College.

"Polaroid Stories" was their first attempt to create an international acting troupe and exchange program.

Ferguson returned July 29 from a five-week stay in Paris. There, he and Gaillot worked to assemble a group of international actors and stage a production of "Polaroid Stories," by American playwright Naomi Iizuka.

While he wasn't working on the "Polaroid Stories" production, Ferguson spent his time in Paris brainstorming ideas with Gaillot and developing goals and plans for the international theater project.

Just as "Polaroid Stories" featured actors from several European countries, the two directors hope their future projects will include international exchanges.

Ambitious goals

Bringing together actors and directors of different nationalities to pull off a performance in just five weeks was no small task.

"The day I arrived (June 24) my collaborator, Emmanuel Gaillot and I had nothing except a raw (unworkshopped) French translation of Naomi Iizuka's 'Polaroid Stories' and four weeks to do something," Ferguson wrote in an e-mail during his trip.

"To be more specific, what we did not have included … actors, any space in which to meet or rehearse, much less perform, and any significant amount of money. The hubris of this hit us like a ton of bricks."

Their first step was to sit in a restaurant in the middle of Paris and make a list of goals and objectives. They realized they did not have the time or resources to do a fully staged production of the play. Their goal was to hold a public staged reading with whatever light and sound elements they could afford.

First, they wanted to workshop Gaillot's translation to see if it would appeal to a French audience. "Polaroid Stories" is an adaptation of Ovid's "Metamorphoses." The story is based on a series of interviews that Iizuka conducted with street children and young prostitutes in a train station in Minneapolis, Minn.

"While the episodes have the extreme drama of Greek mythology, the language of the play is, to put it in dry, academic terms, extremely raw street vernacular," Ferguson said. "This posed an interesting challenge for my friend the translator."

The directors decided to maintain the play's urban American setting.

Gaillot began the search for actors by posting notices on two Web sites, while Ferguson took a four-day side trip to Germany. There, he worked as a production consultant on a Moliére play ("The Doctor in Spite of Himself") performed in French by German students at the University of Bamberg.

He convinced one of the French actors to return to Paris with him to participate in the "Polaroid Stories" project.

By the time Ferguson returned to Paris, Gaillot had collected glossy photos and thick resumes from several actors who responded to the ads.

"So we had actors, but still no space," Ferguson wrote. "We spent three days feverishly running around the city talking to officials and trying to get them to give us a room. Responses ranged from apologetically unhelpful to confused disbelief to haughty dismissal."

Eventually, they found the Centre National du Théâtre, which offered some space in the building. Ferguson and Gaillot scheduled a week of four-hour afternoon work sessions. They assigned parts to the actors, who read through the script twice.

The rest of the week was spent in "exhilarating" debate over French slang, translation issues and the meaning of the play, Ferguson said.

"These were fascinating discussions for me to listen to, but of course I was, at the time, unable to participate," said Ferguson, who was not fluent in French at the start of the trip. "However, I can now curse more violently and colorfully in French than I will ever need to."

That Friday, the group held a private reading for invited guests. After the reading, the guests and actors stayed to continue discussing the text and the translation. By then, most of the actors were excited about the project and wanted it to succeed, Ferguson said.

But a few actors parted ways with the group, Ferguson said.

One left to go to a theater festival in Avignon. Two others had scheduling conflicts.

"One made it plain that he was accustomed to working with the great texts of Moliére, Racine, and Corneille. In his opinion, 'Polaroid Stories' was not a masterpiece so he quit," Ferguson wrote.

They were able to find replacements from the replies they received from the ads.

But one of the new actors "flew into a rage when another actor quietly corrected his pronunciation of an unusual name. He threw down his script and walked out," Ferguson said.

The rehearsals continued despite the off-stage drama. The group spent the next week working in the Cyber Act Théâtre, a small theater with a full lighting grid and 45 seats.

"Even with scripts in their hands, the actors began to deliver remarkable performances, interacting with one another on stage and making the most of the roles," Ferguson said.

The public reading at the end of the week was a success, Ferguson said. The house was almost full and the actors received a strong response from the audience.

Coming attractions

When the actors took their final bow, the curtain didn't fall on Ferguson and Gaillot's collaboration, though.

The staged reading was the first of what they hope will be many international collaborations through the International Theatre Development Project.

"We want to bridge gaps," Ferguson said. "In this time, there is a lot of insularity and xenophobia."

Ferguson hopes to establish an exchange program between drama students at Wofford and at the University of Stuttgart in Germany, where he once taught.

Gaillot plans to come to Spartanburg to design the sound when Ferguson restages "Polaroid Stories" (in English) as part of the drama season at Wofford this year.

As the project grows, Ferguson hopes that Spartanburg and the Upstate will become known for international exchanges and multicultural dramatic works.

"I could envision something like an off-beat, Upstate Spoleto Festival in the future," he said.

He also hopes the project will boost the reputation of Wofford's theater department.

"My main objective here at Wofford is to make this theater program the best place to study theater in the Southeast," he said. "At a school this small, you have to be able to offer something remarkable and specific."