Bates students perform Closer, Patrick Marber's critically acclaimed dissection of love and lust, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Wednesday and Thursday, April 4, 8 and 9 in Pettigrew Hall, Gannett Theater, 305 College St.

This event is open to the public. For more information, please contact 207-786-6161 or visit www.batestickets.com.

The performers are students in Katalin Vecsey's "Advanced Voice and Speech" course, a study of vocal and physical techniques in the exploration of theatrical texts. Her students study characterization through voice and speech, perform cold readings, and assess and prepare for the vocal demands of different roles.

Written in 1997, Closer was made into a 2004 film starring Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Jude Law and Clive Owen, and directed by Mike Nichols. The film, like the play on which it is based, has been viewed as a modern tragic version of Mozart's opera Così fan tutte.

The plot is an elaborate study of two London couples whose lives are intricately tangled. Dan can't choose between his stripper-turned-waitress girlfriend Alice and American photographer Anna. Meanwhile, Anna is pursued by Larry. The story revolves around the couples' brutal honesty about their attractions for one another, and their common goal of winning at the game of love.

Vecsey chose Marber's play because its dramatic structure is governed by its use of stylized language. "The witty dialogues are full of phrases which are repeated throughout the play, often by different characters, to provide an ironic line or to illustrate a shift in the dynamics of the story and the characters," says Vecsey. "Marber deliberately indicates stresses and emphasis into the written text on certain words to suggest the mood, rhythm and tempo that produce meaning.

"I use a different text every semester, and try to find one that is a good fit for the enrolled students in my class," she says. With a different cast each performance, "luckily I have the perfect 12 students to produce three different versions of Closer this semester."

The production includes minimalist staging designed by senior student Rufat Hasanov of Baku, Azerbaijan, in order to emphasize the vocal interactions of the actors and allow the audience to focus on the tonality, shifts in rhythm and other vocal elements.

Performers include seniors David Brustlin of Danvers, Mass., Charlotte Bair-Cucchiaro of Beverly, Mass., Mariana Lidofsky of Providence, R.I., and Hasanov; juniors George MacDonald of Ossining, N.Y., and Caroline Servat of San Francisco; sophomores Tim Fox of Framingham, Mass., Drew Gallagher of Lowell, Mass., Derek Rocchini of Cranford, N.J., and Alison Vingiano of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.; and first-years Nora Brouder of Winchester, Mass., and Jennifer Flanagan of Sherborn, Mass.