Witness finds success in surreal, wacky performance

While student-produced plays often run the risk of being trite, this year's Witness Theater Fall Showcase was an experimental and challenging show. The audience was kept alert with the majority of plays exploring dream states and alternate and often bizarre notions of reality.

The first play, written by senior Eric Levitz, was an engaging depiction of the contrast between the life and the imagination of lonely 40-year-old businessman Wally. The show started in darkness, with the voice of senior Mike Wills, cast as the titular character of "Wally's Daydream," calling out to love interest Susan (freshman Eliza Bell).

The scene then transitions into a memory of his office, in which ad-men are pitching ideas for marketing snack cakes to women. Behind the actors, a projector displayed funny and appealing illustrations of the concepts - drawings created by junior Edwin Vasquez. This scene becomes a clever parallel for the daydream in which the men market Wally to the woman he loves.

The drawings were helpful in clarifying each new focus within the play, since it was difficult to follow the implied shifts between scenes. However, the costume changes, while occasionally funny, were less successful; they were much too slow and distracting for a play that relied on quick changes between sections.

Indeed, directors Levitz and junior Mike Alfieri could have done more to keep the tempo of the play even. Some of the overly lengthy, and subsequently rushed, lines of dialogue also caused confusion, although for the most part, both the script and the acting were convincing.

By the end, the creative premise and comedic moments had successfully yielded deeper emotional truth. When the play reached its conclusion, the audience was simultaneously laughing and feeling sorrowful. An imaginative, well-written show, this was a strong start to the Showcase.

The second show also explored a dream-like state, but in a more disorienting way. "Reports Come In," by sophomore Douglass Ross, featured only a single character on stage: a tormented author played by junior Mac Schwerin, who also directed the play - and remained almost completely silent throughout the act.

The author attempts to write a story while the projector behind him shows surreal video clips of actors speaking about him and to him, as though his own mind is distorting the message of his TV set. Many of these speeches were too fast and abstract to follow clearly, and although the deliberate weirdness was purposeful, it was also taxing.

The third play, "Sentencing," also written by Ross and featuring Schwerin, focused on the unfortunate aftermath of his character Martin's sexual advance on a girl at a party. His pontificating classmate Joseph, played by freshman Seth Ripman, attempts to encourage and defend Martin while they converse in an empty room outside of the party.

This time Ross got it right. While the dialogue had the tendency to become complex, specific and bizarre, the many humorous moments, paired with Ripman's confident delivery, kept the audience engaged.

In fact, Ross painted such a clear picture of the party that one could believe the hordes of Nordic women to which the play alluded were, in fact, going to burst in through the stage door.

The fourth show, "Outround," continued the showcase's apparent theme of unreality. The play focused on a parliamentary debate between two men, representing the government, and two women, the opposition, on whether or not they ought to sleep with each other.

The premise may have had a deeper purpose, but the affected political diction, combined with overtly sexual content, was just plain funny. The actors' delivery of the material elicited a lot of laughter. The directing by Ross and junior Rob Powers seemed effective and kept the play quick and interesting.

The final, most challenging show was also the longest. "Directors and Dreamers" was a collaborative effort: Junior Jeremy Bremer both penned the script and was assistant director to junior Tabitha Moses.

The opening moments were somewhat disorienting, but after a few minutes it was apparent that the scene takes place in a dreamer's preconscious, a place where a stressed-out cast and crew have to perform each night for his benefit.

While the multiple levels within the play were not easy to follow at first, the directing and division of action between the sets helped to clarify a play which aimed to blend the line between the levels of consciousness.

Furthermore, the premise was imaginative and the script was self-aware: The play even included an allusion to Strindberg's "A Dream Play" and concluded with an altered version of Puck's soliloquy from "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

At a few points in the play, the amount of dialogue became slightly overwhelming and some material could certainly have been excised. Nevertheless, the acting was lively and included performances by sophomore Emily Sucher as ex-girlfriend Janice and freshman Benjamin Zucker as "The Dreamer." As a whole, in spite of its length, this play remained intriguing and unexpected to the end.

While the Showcase was undeniably long, for those who enjoy escaping from reality, this Witness Theater event provided thought-provoking entertainment - created in its entirety by talented Hopkins students.