MHS students prepare to compete at event with scenes from ‘Love Letters’

Two Mitchell High School students have proved that not just anyone can perform dual interpretation.

Senior Matt Bartl, 17, and sophomore Maddi Miller, 15, recently became the first students at Mitchell to qualify in their category for the National Speech and Debate Tournament June 11-19 in Kansas City, Mo. They will perform scenes from a Broadway play script entitled, “Love Letters,” by A.R. Gurney.

The duo portray Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, two friends who become close in second grade. Gurney takes the couple through adulthood, marriage, divorce and middle age, according to a review by The New York Times. They never seem to find the right timing to form a relationship and Gardner dies in the end.

During national qualifying tournament finals in Brookings, Bartl and Miller thought they were on stage for the last time. And they delivered a performance that sealed a second-place win and invite to the nationals before an audience.

“This time, I pretty much had tears running down my face at the end of it because I could get into it,” Bartl said. “The whole room was very much into the story going on and it was very cool to see it.”

Dual interpretation involves two characters who exchange dialogue between them. They use techniques, such as blocking, when a member steps behind another, to depict a change in time or person. And they act without the use of costumes, props or touch.

Their oral interpretation coach, Melissa Vatter-Miller, who is Maddi’s mother, chose Gurney’s script because she deems it one of the top two ever written. Because the script had no sets or costumes, she thought it was perfect for the category and ideal for Miller and Bartl to perform.

“You have to have two people that are incredibly strong as actors that are sensitive to each other,” Vatter-Miller said. “If they don’t have the chemistry, it won’t work. … The characters care about each other deeply and they had to emulate that.”

Given that Bartl and Miller are friends, finding the ability to depict that level of sentiment wasn’t too difficult for them.

When Miller first read the script, she said she didn’t like it.

“I thought this would be a Hallmark kind of thing,” she said. “It didn’t seem like the movement would work.”

But the pair underestimated the script, Bartl said. And it ended up being one of their most challenging roles.

“You have to bring chemistry to it,” Miller said. “You have to bring emotion. We both cry in the end. When you’re doing it for so long, it gets emotionally draining.”

The duo worked to perfect their roles during the season and pulled out what Bartl called one of their best performances in the final round of the national qualifying tournament on Feb. 27. They were among four teams who performed.

“We nailed it and I was really, really happy,” he said.

For the national tournament, the pair and Vatter-Miller will step up their game by tweaking major parts of their performance to give judges a fresh perspective.

The students will be among the top 200 duos in the country and perform in six preliminary rounds to whittle the field to 60.

The top six make it to finals, Vatter-Miller said.

“It’s difficult to judge acting because everything is subjective,” she said. “It’s a crazy ride we are on and we are just going to enjoy it.”

Tags: matt bartl, maddi miller, love letters, news, local, mhs