Witness Theater showcased four student-written, student-directed, student-everything plays in a performance that emphasized the talent and diversity here at Hopkins. The 2014 Fall Showcase scheduled three viewing opportunities running from Sept. 26–28.
The first of these short plays featured in the showcase was junior Sarah White’s The Way They Went. Narrator Ryan Kunzer tells the story of brother and sister George (Ian Markham) and Clara (Katherine Gross) from their bickering childhood to an adulthood of broken dreams.
In the opening scene, Clara lectures George about how, as a six-year-old, he needs to act more like an adult, especially since ballet dancer Hugo (John Del Toro) is arriving soon. Hugo trips over George’s train and injures his foot, preventing him from dancing.
Nearly forty years pass, and George is on his way to Clara’s party, but he faces one of his worst fears: the claustrophobia specific to being locked in a bathroom on a train. Meanwhile, Hugo, now a meat packer, has a vendetta towards Clara and murders her with a large butcher’s knife.
White’s story is creative and funny, highlighting Clara’s lost dreams of being a popular socialite as well as providing a ridiculous but entirely believable fear for George. Gross displays her talents by portraying both a child and a grown woman, while Markham demonstrates his emotional range as a frustrated child as well as a terrified man locked in a bathroom on a train.
Next, sophomore Saraniya Tharmarajah’s Blind Guy told the story of Peter (Neil Chapel) and Emily (Sharon Maguire), two friends sitting on a park bench in New York City. He goes to NYU, she goes to Columbia and despite disagreeing on everything, they’ve been best friends since high school.
They argue about a man who Peter is convinced is faking his blindness in an attempt to pick up women. Their argument quickly escalates and turns into accusations: she always needs to be right, while he completely misunderstands her life.
In her short play, Tharmarajah depicts a realistic relationship between two people who seem to have nothing in common. Chapel and Maguire interact with one another as real friends would with their quick banter.
The third show was junior Utkarsh Rajawat’s Eulogy of a Little Soldier Boy. Narrated by Rebecca Van Vorhees, Eulogy follows Kim (Alberto Muniz) from childhood to death. Van Vorhees, in a simple role, conveys sympathy in both her words and limited interactions with Muniz.
As a child, Kim is temperamental and abrasive, constantly picking fights with the other children. When he grows older, he explores the world and his sexuality, giving Muniz the unique opportunity to dry hump a blow-up dummy onstage.
Finally, he is sent off to war and dies. The show concludes with a moving and emotional monologue from Muniz likening the experience of dying to flooding an island before being swept into an embrace by a dead mother.
The final play was Love by the Books, a librarian’s romance penned by senior Matt Myers. Carolyn (Pamela Hugi) begins the show by telling fellow librarian Steven (Matt Moores) of her passionate affair with German Professor Brooks Landskoff (Morris Kraicer).
However, Carolyn’s life grows more and more complicated when her other lover Richard (Richard Kidney) appears at the library, followed by Doris (Francesca D’Uva), a girl who simply wants to use the library’s catalogues. Brooks arrives as well, and Carolyn finds herself unable to choose between the older, fatherly Richard and the youthful professor.
Myers creates a ridiculous world that is appears perfectly normal. The dialogue is overly formal but filled with odd metaphors and euphemisms. Hugi blushes her way through conversations with both her suitors, Kidney carries an old man’s hobble throughout the show and Moores elicits laughs with his repeated hands-in-air fleeing.
D’Uva’s matter-of-fact acting and oblivious, blank expressions make her a humorous and awkward addition to the story. But Kraicer really steals the show with his animated reading of a poem in which a boy speaks to his father about the Elf King.
None of these shows could have succeeded without the incredible technical crew. Set designer Grace Mumby and her build crew bring to life the train’s bathroom from The Way They Went with a small closet of sorts and an illuminated vacancy sign hanging above the door. Mumby also creates towering 12-foot bookshelves full of colored spines for Love by the Books.
Sound designer Vittorio Loprinzo sets the tone for each show with well-selected music, most notably the dramatic underscore for Muniz’s closing monologue in Eulogy.
Costume designer Nava Rastegar establishes the time period of The Way They Went with Gross’s long nightgown, while makeup designer Renee Scavone emphasizes Kidney’s age in Love by the Books with grayed hair. Props master Ian Mukherjee brings realism to the picnic of Blind Guy with real sandwiches and a real bottle of water that ends up all over Chapel’s shirt.
Each play showcased this weekend had unique themes and stories, be they humorous, devastating or both. Witness Theater’s 2014 Fall Showcase exhibits the talent of Hopkins students and promises more student-produced performances in the year to come.
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