Senior Mackenzie Gable acts annoyed as the second wife of her OID character's husband tries to find a way to get rid of her. Gable plays a first wife come back from the dead in a humorous OID.
Mackenzie Gable's ghost character proclaims her undying love for her alive husband and plots to reunite them.
Gable's character Elvira seethes with rage at the thought of her husband married to another woman, even though she is only a ghost.
Mackenzie Gable cries as her character takes offense at the thought of her husband wanting to send her away. Gable's OID has already taken home top honors in most meets this season and hopes to compete at the district and state level in the next few weeks.
When it comes to humor, facial expressions can make or break a performance, which is likely why Gering senior Mackenzie Gable has had such success in her speech career.
This year, she is in Oral Interpretation of Drama (OID) and humorous prose, both of which require some over-the-top facials. Between the two, though, Gable has a hard time choosing a favorite.
“I love both in different ways,” she said. “I just feel like you learn so much from the people that you’re in your events with that it’s too hard to pick one. I feel like there’s just, when you love two things, you just, they’re different in their own ways.”
If going by success, OID might be Gable’s event. She and her OID team placed third at state her freshman year and sixth her sophomore year. OID has been her one constant through her speech career.
“OID is definitely (something) where you just find so many different connections throughout your team and other schools,” she said. “I definitely can say, out of my four years, I still talk to every single person that I’ve ever had in an OID. You definitely just form that different type of connection.”
Maybe it’s something to do with pretending to be a deranged wife come back from the dead to kill her husband so they can be together forever, which is what she does in this year’s OID of “Blithe Spirit,” that really helps forms a bond like no other with her co-OID members.
But whether it’s developing that connection with her OID teammates or the rest of her speech teammates, Gable said it’s the family atmosphere that has kept her coming back each year—and the success has helped to.
“The family aspect of our speech team just really attracts a lot of people,” she said. “We have band people, we have jocks, we have about everything in the book on speech team, and I think we are just a very accepting team, and everybody is rooting for each other. We all want everyone to do well, and we’ve been blessed to be able to be successful. So, to be able to have great coaches and great teammates, it just, it makes you want to come back and do good for them and do good for your coaches and yourself.”
Olivia Wieseler
Reporter
Olivia Wieseler is a reporter with the Star-Herald. She can be reached at 308-632-9051 or by emailing oliva.wieseler@starherald.com.
