Holy unexpectedly entertaining evening, Batman! I've suffered through my share of Witness flops in the past; while the acting has always been palatable, the student-written plays have, in general, been either too dull or too bizarre to hold my attention (with the notable exception of Adam Ruben's comedic gems, but more about that later). This past weekend, however, I was treated to a pleasant surprise. Student playwrights, directors, actors and crew members collaborated to produce what was by the far the best Witness event in quite some time.
The evening started with two plays by Marina Koestler. The first, Self Scan, puts a humorous spin on a frustrating situation to which most everybody can relate. Mark (Dave Haldone) is a man stuck in line at the grocery store self-scan behind an addled woman (Sarah Crawford) and her shopping cart full of groceries. To make matters worse, a crazy man who believes he is God begins breathing down Mark's neck -- sometimes literally -- as he waits to purchase his industrial size mustard.
Under the direction of junior Tim Rhue, the actors delivered a pretty solid performance. As the deranged man, Akshay Uberol embraced his character with enthusiasm, though it was sometimes difficult to understand what he was saying. Crawford and junior Joseph Mathew were the most entertaining as a couple that perpetually argues.
Props are due to the crew (no pun intended) for an especially impressive set design. They recreated the aisles of a grocery store in four large paintings in the back of the stage and built a working self-scan complete with a moving conveyor belt. Josh Bob Antoline provided the electronic voice of the self-scanner.
Junior Ishai Moreville directed the second Koestler play, a short piece called Not a Clue. This play captures the irony of a crossword puzzle help-line operator (Elspeth Kursh) who receives a call from her befuddled boyfriend (Andrew Levinson), thus discovering the explanation for their massive phone bills. The quick banter between the characters was well-written aside from what I felt was an excess of foul language. Kursh delivered an especially strong performance.
The third play, Intelligent Life, by Katie Gradowski, was the weakest link in the production. It opens with a line of frustrated customers at the DMV. In a bit part, junior Mike Levy says, with no shortage of expletives, what I think we are all tempted to say by the time we reach the front of that line. Gradowski might have had a great play if she simply stuck to the plot of a day at the DMV, but she introduces a ridiculous scenario of aliens trying to overthrow the earth, and police trying to arrest them, and intergalactic dudes trying to kill everyone. I left for intermission thoroughly confused. And why did all of the featured playwrights feel the need to pepper their scripts with gratuitous expletives?
The final one-act (which actually was three acts) was nothing short of inspired. Witness veteran Adam Ruben put together another brilliant play that was genuinely funny and surprisingly sweet. Aided by the skillful direction of Eric Jabart and fellow playwright Koestler, Ruben's You're in Purgatory Charlie Brown was the best I've seen from Witness and perhaps even better than some of the professional plays I've seen on campus.
Ruben's premise is a simple question: What happens to our favorite fictional characters after their creators die? Charlie Brown (Dave Fishman) finds himself in an unfamiliar setting after cartoonist Charles Schultz dies, surrounded by other childhood favorites like Kermit (Anthony Blaha), Mickey Mouse (Garrett Clark), Howdy Doody (Jerome Fox), Lamb Chop (Dorothy Spencer), and Eloise (Cecily Naron).
In a song and dance number -- yes, this is a musical -- the characters explain that Charlie has arrived in Lovable Character Limbo. The characters hope to ascend to eternal life through the legacies they have left, but don't know how to go through the gate to exit limbo. All they want is to "dwell in the hearts of children forever, like polysaturated fat." (Clever lines like this abound; Ruben is a truly gifted comedic writer.)
Kermit, however, knows another way to achieve eternal life. In a segment with more than subtle Matrix overtones, he explains how he is the mastermind behind the resurrected Muppets in Muppet Treasure Island and other such shows. Charlie decides to give this alternate route a try, and soon finds himself back home with his familiar set pieces (all two of them).
A delightfully urbane image consultant (Liz Gilbert) has refined the image of the outdated Peanuts characters. Marcie (Loandra Torres) and Peppermint Patty (Emily Mattes) are now lesbians, Schroeder (Jason Rossetto) has become a goth punk, Linus (Mike Cox) joined a gang (and now sucks his thumb like a gangsta), and Snoopy transformed into Snoop Dogg.
These hilarious makeovers bring out a new flava in the gang's interactions -- now they rap about drugs and hos. Charlie, sadly, is too much of a cracker for even our brilliant consultant, so the poor boy gets sent back to limbo where he must discover the source of true immortality. The ending benefited from the audiences' nostalgia, providing a touching conclusion to a hilarious play.
While I felt that every actor delivered a quality performance, some stood out above the rest. Some, by virtue of their character, were guaranteed to get laughs. As Linus, Cox showed how badass a blanket-toting toddler can be. Batman (Rustom Davar) and Robin (Lancelot Esteibar) played like the Ambiguously Gay Duo. Clark, as Mickey, pulled off a close approximation of the mouse's squeaky voice, but was best as the cigar-smoking cynic his character had become. My two favorites were consultant Gilbert, a freshman with enough personality for a one-woman show, and Blaha, who mastered Kermit's every idiosyncrasy with fabulous results.
