St. Andrew’s-Sewanee Players will present “Godzilla,” an original John Holleman production, Oct. 24–26, in McCrory Hall for the Performing Arts. Performances will be at 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday, Oct. 24–25, and 4 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 26.
Admission is $10 for adults and $7 for children under 10. SAS students attend free.
“Like Dracula, Godzilla is more than a monster,” said John Holleman, SAS theatre director and playwright.
“It is an entire modern mythology including sequels, spin-offs, remakes, novelizations, comic books, cartoons, television series and parodies. In Godzilla’s case, the origin was ‘Gojira,’ an ambitious horror film from a Tokyo film studio in 1954. This movie about a giant monster, ‘kaiju’ in Japanese, was a celebration of destruction in which the first audience got to see the very building they were sitting in being monster-crushed in the film.
“Beneath the surface, the story reflected many real anxieties and tragedies of the people of that time and place. The film was a monster hit in Japan, and a year later American producers invested in the film. They presented in America an audacious and unprecedented refashioning of the film, retitled ‘Godzilla, King of the Monsters.’”
The SAS Players are proud to contribute to the mythology of Godzilla with their creation of a live theater reinterpretation of “Gojira” and “Godzilla, King of the Monsters.” The production features bold movement-theater, and a 35-member ensemble aesthetic that includes every cast member playing roles and serving as stagehands. The play recreates the joy of a good horror film, while reflecting a bit of Japanese culture and the American culture of the 1950s.
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