“The Commedia: Tales of King Arthur” brings student-led “play within a play” to Concordia’s Black Box

Arlequin as King Arthur (Sam Olsen, right) gives quests to Punchin as Sir Lancelot (Nathan Sollberger, center) and Rosetta as Sir Gawain (Aubrey Burmeister, left).

Photo credit: Elizabeth Salo

By Elizabeth Salo

Laughter and applause could be heard trickling out of the packed Black Box Theatre on Friday night during this year’s children’s play, “The Commedia: Tales of King Arthur,” performed and directed by Concordia students.

As the audience took their seats before the show, sophomore Sam Olsen, junior Nathan Sollberger, sophomore Morgan Davis, and senior Caleb Jalas improvised a performance as “The Four Buffoons,” whose characters were based on their roles in the play.

The play itself is about an acting troupe that is performing a play on the tales of King Arthur, making it essentially a play within a play. The theatrical style of “commedia dell’arte” allows for improvisation, which also added to the play’s humor.

“I picked [the play] because, for a children’s show, you want it to be more fun, lighthearted, and shorter,” said junior Sarah Stepp, the play’s student director. “The fun thing for the commedia is that it’s very similar to a melodrama…it’s an Italian style of show and normally it would be improv, so throughout rehearsing, I said ‘Ok, let’s add some improv stuff, try to do more improv’, and they did an amazing job of doing it, and I think this show, and all the shows went super-duper well.”

The players also enjoyed the show, including sophomore Aubrey Burmeister, who played troupe member Rosetta in the larger play. Her character Rosetta, in turn, played Young Arthur and Sir Gawain during the plays within the play.

“It was so much fun to play Rosetta,” said Burmeister. “She’s very enthusiastic, very loud, very broad. She played mainly men in this production, which was kind of fun to play, kind of fun to switch it up…it was a lot of fun to work on characterization and a bunch of different voices and stuff.”

Audience members also voiced their enjoyment and satisfaction with the play.

“It was so good. They are such good actors and really know how to entertain,” said sophomore audience member Sophia Donovan.

“I thought the show was very well put together and very fun,” said Isaac Herrington, another sophomore audience member. “It was a very good children’s show because it wasn’t only fun for just the little kids, but it was fun for all these college students here, and it was a really packed house, which is great. It’s such a fun little show, and I’m really happy with how it turned out.”

The play was performed by freshman Hannah Mattsfield as Columbine, Sam Olsen as Arlequin, Nathan Sollberger as Punchin, Aubrey Burmeister as Rosetta, Caleb Jalas as Sir Kay and Meleagant, Morgan Davis as Sir Gwon and the Green Knight, freshman Mason Lockwood as the Red Dragon, freshman Onyx Stone as Sir Ector and the Merchant, and sophomore Rebecca Duerr as the Farmer and Vivian.