The Irresistible Elena
Theatergoers might recognize Indy intern Elena White from her recent portrayal of Arturo Ui in Westmont College’s eponymous The Resistible Rise of. Or maybe not. The cross-gender portrayal of a Chicago mobster placed Elena in clownface as she and her fellow theater majors stepped through Bertolt Brecht’s dark play. “It’s a funny play,” Elena insisted, “a comedy, until it becomes scary.” She hunched her shoulders to show how Ui starts out as a laughable caricature — talking of obvious comparisons to present-day politics — and then straightens into a formidable dictator circa 1933. But at the modern-day Indy, Elena’s writing reviews and arts stories, as well as being our go-to proofreader, keeping our prose grammatical with nary a dictatorial word spoken.
