Spring Break
Freshmen One-Acts showcase incoming talent
Issue date: 10/25/07
Nearly everyone has heard of the concept that a monkey, sitting at a typewriter and randomly hitting keys, would eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare or, at the very least, Hamlet. Words, Words, Words by David Ives was an attempt to bring this humorous tale to life, featuring three monkeys, Kafka (freshman Giselle Chang), Milton (freshman Kristina Madarang) and Swift (freshman Alex Rozenshteyn) and their efforts to write Hamlet, despite having a complete lack of understand about what Hamlet is exactly. Just like Funeral Parlor, this play's dialogue was very funny, and the actors' monkey-isms - banana-eating, bar-climbing, box-jumping and all - certainly added a novel element.
Naomi in the Living Room (Christopher Durang), directed by sophomore Evelyn Clark, brought any audience member's attention still wandering from the intermission back into the second half of shows with a bang. Less of a bang, rather, than a full-on orgasm. The play featured Naomi, a psychotic mother (zealously played by freshman Sara Luterman) to whom her son (Pierce Delahunt) and wife (freshman Julie Abramowitz) decide to pay a visit. Naomi's obnoxious, badgering, and truly insane behavior, which ran the gambit from swearing (often) to ignoring the fact of the unfortunate deaths of the couple's five children (more than a few times) to orgasming on her own couch (just once), left the audience alternatively laughing at its ridiculousness and cringing at its awkwardness. Despite its entertainment, however, the play itself gave little justification in the characters' pasts for such ridiculous actions, which threatened any emotional or thematic core the play might have had. Fortunately, the acting was good, Luterman's especially excellent, and the directing well-done.
Every child who knows of Shel Silverstein grows up reading The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends and The Missing Piece Meets the Big O. The fifth One-Act, Buy One, Get One Free, introduced many to Shel Silverstein's less well-known, dark and comically twisted take on more adult themes. The play features two hookers, Sherilee (freshman Jackie Huang) and Merilee (freshman Kelly McNamara), and their adventures in marketing. "Buy one, get one free," they say, "If you buy her, we'll throw in me." When a potential customer decides the two hookers are trying to rip him off by charging a "C" ($100), he confronts them, and the two become rather belligerent. The play's dialogue, in rhyme with the word "free" nearly the entire time, is a testament to Silverstein's genius. The performances by both Huang and McNamara were solid.
Naomi in the Living Room (Christopher Durang), directed by sophomore Evelyn Clark, brought any audience member's attention still wandering from the intermission back into the second half of shows with a bang. Less of a bang, rather, than a full-on orgasm. The play featured Naomi, a psychotic mother (zealously played by freshman Sara Luterman) to whom her son (Pierce Delahunt) and wife (freshman Julie Abramowitz) decide to pay a visit. Naomi's obnoxious, badgering, and truly insane behavior, which ran the gambit from swearing (often) to ignoring the fact of the unfortunate deaths of the couple's five children (more than a few times) to orgasming on her own couch (just once), left the audience alternatively laughing at its ridiculousness and cringing at its awkwardness. Despite its entertainment, however, the play itself gave little justification in the characters' pasts for such ridiculous actions, which threatened any emotional or thematic core the play might have had. Fortunately, the acting was good, Luterman's especially excellent, and the directing well-done.
Every child who knows of Shel Silverstein grows up reading The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends and The Missing Piece Meets the Big O. The fifth One-Act, Buy One, Get One Free, introduced many to Shel Silverstein's less well-known, dark and comically twisted take on more adult themes. The play features two hookers, Sherilee (freshman Jackie Huang) and Merilee (freshman Kelly McNamara), and their adventures in marketing. "Buy one, get one free," they say, "If you buy her, we'll throw in me." When a potential customer decides the two hookers are trying to rip him off by charging a "C" ($100), he confronts them, and the two become rather belligerent. The play's dialogue, in rhyme with the word "free" nearly the entire time, is a testament to Silverstein's genius. The performances by both Huang and McNamara were solid.
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