This past weekend’s Witness Fall Showcase, a compilation of short players written, directed and acted entirely by students, included a crime investigation on Mars, a vamped up retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, a peak into the dialogues and contemplations between fruits, three monologues each addressing the absence of someone and a family’s trials/tribulations with having a terrorist son.
While the showcase was filled with plays about absurd topics backboned by some witty ideas, for the most part these came across as gimmicks. The strongest plays were by far the two most normal: “Three Attempts”, the three monologues by Mac Schwerin featuring Pierce Delahunt, Kristina Madarang and Ian T. White, as well as “The Sheikh” by Douglas Ross with Benjamin H. Zucker, Luke Mayhew, Rebecca McGivney, Charlie McGeorge, Stephen Edwards, Stephanie Delman and Benjamin H. Zucker.
In contrast with the other plays, which seemed only to skim the surface of what they were attempting, “Three Attempts” and the “The Sheikh” felt fully fleshed out and satisfying. At the end of each of these two the audience was left satiated and not utterly baffled. The other three plays “A Klick in Our Shoes” by Benjamin H. Zucker, “Served Chilled: A Fable” by Rob Powers, and “Maybe Your Tree is Dead” by Ian T. White seemed to all similarly rely upon audience confusion morphing into laughter and applause.
In “Maybe Your Tree is Dead,” for example, Strawberry and Orange muse upon the great unsolved question of where they came from. Talk of their respective orange tree and strawberry bush transforms into one or both of them putting on masks and chasing the other around, both of them drawing pictures of no-one-knows-what and random people with signs taped to their chests crossing in front of the fruit at various times. Strawberry and Orange may not know what they’re doing here but their confusion certainly cannot outweigh that of wondering “what is going on?!” as an audience member.
With “Served Chilled: A Fable,” the motif of ‘gin sin’ (an alcoholic beverage made with orange juice and gin) appearing first when, the Voice, the narrator Stephen Edwards, introduces how to correctly make a gin sin, through to when the Wolf, played by Isaac Finkelstein, successfully drugs Julie (Amanda Bell) is a good idea but fails to translate effectively in the action of the play.
The performances seemed very jilted and forced due to the contrived nature of the dialogue.
Instead of acting, the actors seemed to be reading words that no one would naturally say, from a page. The laughter that “Served Chilled: A Fable” elicited felt awkward and nervous in response to the overall awkward and nervous performance.
The writers and directors in the audience seemed to find moments of confusion, such as when Strawberry and Orange present their drawings to the audience, quite funny, but few other people in the audience are laughing.
And while it may be that the audience simply did not understand the play, the point of the fall showcase is for the plays to be presented and performed for an audience. The writers may need to rethink why their plays are inaccessible to the audience.
Many of the plays were plagued by large gaps of silence where the actors were seemingly simply staring off into space or waiting for a cue. While these blanks may have been directed choices as moments of deep thought, too many of them broke up the plays, allowing audience interest to lapse into confusion as well. Instead of being prompted to wonder about questions raised by each play, the audience was largely focused on wondering and questioning whether pauses were intentional and “wtf” was going on.
The acting overall, however, was good; everyone was very enthusiastic and while enthusiasm does not make good acting it definitely helps to carry the play along when the audience sees that those on stage are invested in what they’re performing.
Several key performances stood out including those of Rebecca McGivney and Luke Mayhew, who played the mother and father in Ross’ “The Sheikh,” as well as Jeremy Bremer as Stevens, in Zucker’s “A Klick In Our Shoes.” McGivney and Mayhew were just aware enough of the audience to make us feel included in their pathetic and ridiculous turmoil and yet maintained a separation that allowed them to actually act as the characters and not come across as simplypantomiming and reading a script.
Lastly, the showcase seemed to be fraught with technical difficulties from an overly long intermission of close to 20 minutes to music playing at random times. While having a misdirected light or music cue may have stumped the audience. one can only imagine the confusion of the actors on stage.
Though the first half of the showcase caught the audience off-guard with absurd plays and unsatisfactory performances, the audience walked out of the theater relatively pleased by the last two plays. “Three Attempts,” the only entirely serious of the works is memorable for being executed with convincing honesty and earnestness by Delahunt, Madarang and White. The relatable content of both “Three Attempts” and “The Sheikh” in focusing on universally felt experiences related to love, absence and family made these two plays the clear stars of the showcase.
Witness would do well in experimenting less with bizarre themes absurdly executed, as clearly their plays about more ordinary things are greatly appreciated by audiences.
