Hot on the heels of Hopkins smash hit JHUConfessions, Witness Theater staged another student written production this past weekend at the Arellano Theater in Levering.
The student group performed a series of six one-act plays written, directed and produced by current undergrads over the course of Saturday and Sunday.
The night began with an announcement from senior Pierce Delahunt who, in protest of the University’s decision to cut two plays from the showcase due to nudity, appeared on stage stark blooming naked.
It was an unexpectedly intimate view of Hopkins politics, though Delahunt seemed unfazed by the attention and merely promoted feminist porn director Tristan Taormino’s discussion panel later that week. With the proverbial ice broken by that surprise, the night proceeded quite companionably.
Even with a small rotating cast, the student-run theater company managed to put on an interesting show. Bellissimo, the first one-act of the evening, utilized only four actors.
Written by junior Luke Mayhew, freshman Marc Reisner stumbles around, taking photos. The flash blinds in the near total darkness. From one corner of the stage, junior Ian White acts as the surf-and-sound guy, or the “IndIAN Ocean!” as the program accredits him.
Senior Ben Greenfield played Archibald, the earnest Italian painter who argues with Peppino (Freshman Brandon Epstein), a rival painter who paints not only the landscape of the seaside, but Archibald painting the landscape.
Benny, the photographer from earlier, takes photos even as their philosophic difference results in fisticuffs on the beach. Enraged by the interruption, Archibald shoves the innocent bystander and kills him.
Though the artists’ pizza parlor Italian accents were hokey at times, when push came to shove, Greenfield and Epstein were still able to convincingly portray the guilt and denial their characters feel at the climax. Mayhew’s play deftly interweaves humor with regret; its success stands as a testament to the playwright’s skill.
Next up was freshman Jen Diamond’s The Curator, which pits a recently separated couple against each other.
Though the concept of the play was intriguing (Hugo, played by Mayhew, steals baggage from the airport where he works and May, played by freshman Lien Le, finds out), the pacing was a little off. Diamond doesn’t establish Hugo and May’s relationship soon enough and, as a result, the audience spends too much time trying to piece it together.
Nonetheless, Hugo’s compulsive stealing beautifully illustrates his desperation for human companionship, and Diamond deserves serious props for coming up with this brilliant conceit.
Mayhew and Le awkwardly orbit each other as Hugo and May and, though the reason for their break-up is never divulged, their stilted conversations provide enough fodder for the imagination that an explanation is unnecessary.
White’s whimsically disjointed pastoral, simply called A Mountain Scene, begins rather aptly with a pair of yodeling siblings. Argus and Sarah, played by freshmen Jake Budenz and Amanda Feinman, who love the mountain on which they live. The two go into raptures about its beauty, its ability to provide for them and how grateful they are to it.
However, the brother Argus disrupts the harmony after he dreams of another, better mountain. The conflict between Argus and Sarah builds until their long-lost mother, played by senior Rebecca McGivney, manages to assuage them both.
White’s profusion of elevated language worked well enough in context, though at times his command of it seemed to falter.
An exercise in the absurd, the play featured the playwright himself as a surly pig, a purple falcon whose function wasn’t made completely clear, and an uncomfortably incestuous relationship between Argus and Sarah.
Though there was certainly promise, the play suffered from the lack of a uniting theme. If some deeper meaning was intended, it was lost beneath interspecies make-outs and over-the-top camp.
Following a short intermission, Mayhew returned with his second play, Late Play. Delahunt was spot-on as Tristan, a well-meaning but exasperated professor who meets with Nate (freshman Charlie McGeorge) to discuss his as-of-yet unworkshopped play.
A snapshot of life as a Writing Seminars student, Late Play left the audience crying with laughter as the unresponsive student runs circles around his professor.
The occasionally pointed digs at the department were enjoyable; though not necessarily high art, it was nonetheless quite brilliant.
The indisputable highlight of the evening was Kathleen Hancock’s one-act Three Ways About It. A disturbing glimpse into the psychosis of three women (played by Diamond, freshman Erika Rodriguez and McGivney), the spotlight rotates among the three actresses.
Eventually, their separate accounts of abuse converge into a
single, overlapping account and the audience is left wondering if there were three women at all.
The perfect marriage of writing, directing, and acting, Three Ways About It chilled one to the bone with its unflinching appraisal of insanity.
The showcase ended on a much lighter note with junior Jake Appet’s time-hopping one-act, entitled Thomas and the Time Machine.
A complicated and somewhat convoluted tale that included an Asian Miley Cyrus (played by sophomore Anne Jun), a mad scientist named Johnny (sophomore Oliver Roth), and assorted “Robo-Police Officers” (White, Reisner, and freshman Brandon R. Weber).
Freshman Benjamin Ketter plays the title character Thomas, whose breakup with Miley Cyrus sends him into a depressed funk.
He enlists the help of his friend Johnny, who tries to send him into the past so he can sleep with Miley one last time.
Instead, Thomas winds up in a futuristic prison cell with inmate Jeff-ron (played by the playwright, Appet).
Though amusing, the play could have benefited from a few more edits. Appet shows little restraint and instead throws the unfilted products of his considerable imagination into the narrow confines of one act.
Despite the number of one-acts, the entire showcase lasted a little under two hours and the cast hung around afterwards to chat with friends and fans of the theater.
All in all, Witness’ Spring Showcase could be considered a success for all involved and the talents of Hopkins or Hopkins-affiliated artists were aptly showcased.
