Professors and Students Present Poetry in 3-D

Imagine the University of Tampa as it it might have looked in the times of ancient Greece: Plato and Socrates are philosophizing in the Spartan Club,and you’re outside chilling with Homer in Vaughn Courtyard.

All of a sudden Homer remembers he hasn’t told you about the insane party his roommate Hesiod and himself had Saturday night, so he launches into an -length poem detailing the events.

When you get back to where you live in Stadium, you run into that crazy math cat Pythagorus. You start to retell Homer’s story and consequentially are considered a rhapsode.

At 8 p.m. on Sept. 24 and Sept. 25, the Edison Building was transported back into the time of ancient Greece, when it hosted the free event Reverberance: A Poetic Rhapsody.

The minimalistic set was made up of a sofa couch, wooden side table and fancy chair, all of which overlooked the rows of audience seating, so that Edison was transformed from a dance studio to a theatre fit for Homer himself to perform in.

What is a rhapsode, you ask? Well in ancient times, those who performed classic poetry were called rhapsodes.

They were considered “song-stitchers” because they “stitched” together the works of Homer and Hesiod, improvising their words in the process.

Assistant Professor of Speech and Theatre Bob Gonzalez orchestrated Reverberance to be a throwback to the days of rhapsodes in Greece.

The show consisted of two acts and no intermission. The first act was performed by Gonzalez, along with special appearances by assistant Professor of English Tracy Ann Morse and assistant Professor of Music Bradford Blackburn.

Gonzalez’s repertoire for the evening included poetic greats such as Walt Whitman, Alfred Tennyson, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and many more.

Gonzalez set a rapid-fire pace for the show and launched into rhapsodizing by describing one of the first poems he recited as a “kiss on consonants.”

Morse introduced the additional element of American Sign Language (ASL) into the set with Alfred Tennyson’s poem “The Splendor Falls”; Walt Whitman’s poems “Smile,” “O Voluptuous” and “Cool-Breath’d Earth” and William Wordsworth’s “Daffodils” and “My Heart Leaps Up.”

During the talk-back portion of the evening, audience members were given the opportunity to provide feedback about the performance.

Crowd members felt very strongly about the ASL interpretation of “My Heart Leaps Up,” because it was the only piece in which both Morse and Gonzalez signed together to the spoken word.

An audience member said that the combination of voice and hand gestures created an even stronger emotion within the poem.

Some of the other crowd-pleasers of the night included Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” and John Donne’s “The Flea,” in which Gonzalez created characters that he said, with eyebrows raised, “do what men had been trying to do [since] before man could speak.”

An example of what he means can be clearly interpreted by Marvell’s tongue-in-cheek stanza that states that if the lovers do not make hay while the sun shines, “Then worms shall try / That long preserved virginity / And your quaint honour turn to dust / And into ashes all my lust.”

Gonzalez’s Act One hauntingly continued with Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Conquerer Worm” and “The Bells,” with live accompaniment by Blackburn.

Bubbling electronic beats gushed from Blackburn’s guitar and MacBook, marrying poetry to writhing sounds that sent shivers down my spine — a horror soundtrack fit for Poe’s disturbing works.

During the talk-back, USF senior Heather Blalock commented on how having the music go along with the words brought the performance to a whole other level. Blalock, a former student of Gonzalez’s who had traveled just to see Reverberance, memorably described the music as taking the performance “from 2-D to 3-D.”

Gonzalez ended his rhapsodic act with a bow, letting Horace’s poetic words of “Happy the Man” as translated by John Dryden, echo in Edison: “Happy the man / and happy he alone / He who can call today his own … But what has been / has been / and I have had my hour.”

The second portion of the evening introduced the UT’s very own student Spartan rhapsodes, reading works from their favorite poets.

Victoria Williams, Colleen Cherry, Aileen Suseck, Patricia Yeazell, Danielle Calderone and Griffeth Whitehurst were the young rhapsodes who performed.

Highlights from the student rhapsodes included Cherry’s reading of New Yorker Frank O’Hara’s witty “Meditations in an Emergency” and “A Step Away from Them,” as well as Yeazell’s performance of T.S. Elliot’s children’s poems, “The Naming of Cats” and “The Ad-dressing of Cats.”

Unlike the first half of the performance, in which Gonzalez performed all the poetry from memory, the students read theirs from a podium.

During the audience discussion, many viewers noticed that the rhapsodes may have been constricted by the music stands.

“I probably would’ve painted myself as a cat lady if I had the poems memorized … I would’ve gone all out,” joked Yeazell.

When addressing some of the challenges of rhapsodizing poetry, Cherry observed that it’s definitely “a different experience. It’s scarier than singing, and your character isn’t as defined as it is in a play.”

Calderone added that “getting up on stage as yourself with a poem that defines who you are is terrifying,” even though in a sense “you’re hiding behind someone else’s words.”

Each of the student rhapsodes performed wonderfully, bringing a touch of their own personality to the podium.

“It can’t be tap dances all the time,” said Gonzalez in closing; however, I think the two-night performances certainly brought as much energy to poetry as a dance show would have.

Spartan rhapsode Whitehurst mentioned before his reading that he was reminded of the Robin Williams’ movie Dead Poet Society when he first heard of Reverberance.

Certain scenes in the movie show young students, much like Whitehurst and his colleagues, reading the works of great classical poets, so the reference is not too far off from what the performance was.

The evening truly changed the stereotypical view of dull poetry and brought black and white print to life in full color.

Reverberance: A Poetic Rhapsody honored the ancient Greek rhapsodies of old and revived an interest in rhapsodic poetry for the new generation of Spartans.

If Homer could have sat in Edison’s makeshift theatre with me Friday and Saturday night, I think he would have agreed.

Support the Arts. For more information on free events hosted by the Department of Speech, Theatre, and Dance please visit http://www.ut.edu or call (813) 257-3745.

If you are interested in participating in future rhapsodies, contact Bob Gonzalez at rmgonzalez@ut.edu.

Amanda Sieradzki can be reached at asieradzki@spartans.ut.edu.