Theater department continues to highlight student-produced one-acts
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre
The second week of student-produced one-act plays began with much laughter as The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre by Allen Knee was first on the bill.
Directed by senior Ryan Moore, the play starred Heather Hayes as Sheryl and Maxwell Norris as Kenny, while Brandon Flippo played the role of Flipp, the silent bartender.
Set in Flipp’s bar, Sheryl and Kenny are two past lovers who agree to meet once every year thinking their rendezvous will be exciting and fun.
Of course, things don’t go as smoothly as the two would have hoped.
The situation quickly becomes awkward when Kenny begins to make misguided advances towards Sheryl, such as giving her a wrapped Valentine’s Day gift that contained a picture of himself striking a macho pose.
Sheryl laughs at Kenny’s egotistical gesture before attempting to deflate his hopes by informing him that she is seeing someone else, going so far as to say that she won’t be attending their annual reunions henceforth.
However, Kenny is not the type to be dissuaded so easily, and Maxwell Norris did a terrific job in bringing out this stubborn playfulness of his character. Hayes’s character Sheryl had an equally fiery temperament, so when their conversation became heated the two actors began to play off of each other, gradually building the scene’s energy until the literal “climax” happened on the pool table.
Even the silent bartender Flipp created some humorous moments, such as when he began to pour himself a shot of whiskey, but due to the nature of what just happened on his pool table – he elects for a large swig straight from the bottle instead.
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was an excellent choice to start the night of plays as it warmed the audience up with laughter while still offering something substantial to consider about relationships: we never appreciate anything until it’s gone. Then we make love to it on a pool table in a bar.
Everything Falls Off
The second show of the night was Everything Falls Off written by Clyde Hendrickson.
Senior Parker Arnold directed the show with Houston Pokorny as Syd, a member of a leper colony in Hawaii, and Zac Jackson as his new roommate, Nate.
While the subject matter of Arnold’s play is decidedly more grim than Valentine’s, the humor certainly did not stop there; Everything Falls Off is a dark comedy to be sure.
The play opens with Syd alone in his messy room waiting for his new roommate to arrive.
The room is drab and resembles a college dormitory, but it is decorated with curtains fashioned from medical gauze, which Syd is quite proud of creating.
It becomes obvious that Syd has been driven slightly mad by his captivity to both his condition and to his room, and Nate immediately learns of his madness as soon as he arrives in the room thanks to Pokorny’s highly animated performance showing his penchant for comedic timing, be it slapstick or otherwise.
Everything Falls Off can seem dark due to the ailing condition of its characters, but those feelings quickly fade as Syd and Nate carry on with their happy temperament, enjoying themselves despite their deteriorating medical condition.
This friendship serves as the focal point of the play, as it brings relief to both characters and serves as a source of inspiration for the audience.
Arnold did a nice job of illustrating this point by creating a set that looks just as decrepit as Syd and his gnarled appendages wrapped in bloody bandages.
This deteriorating backdrop worked excellently to contrast the characters’ optimism, showing that we can hold our heads high even in the face of great disparity.
Patterson’s
The final play of the night was Patterson’s written by Mary Miller and directed by Sterling Biegert, starring Morgan Burkey as the woman and Mitchell Welch as the man.
Patterson’s was the shortest play of the night and it was decidedly toned down compared the previous shows, offering a quaint production to send audiences home with a smile.
The play opens with the elderly woman exiting the front door of the funeral home as she triumphantly pulls a shirt out of her purse.
Satisfied with her bounty, she begins to leave until the man follows her out of the funeral parlor to tell her that she should return the shirt. After all, it’s not right to steal from the dead.
The audience learns that the man and woman were once high school sweethearts who are now attending the funeral of the woman’s sister, whom is also the man’s deceased wife.
Burkey’s character seems to have been jealous of her presumably older sister, as many siblings are, and she maintains that it’s not theft if the shirt belonged to her before her sister “borrowed” it without giving it back.
Her jealousy is palpable as she cannot even let it go despite her sister lying dead in a coffin, taking their sibling rivalry to new heights. The man notices her discomfort, and it was plain to see that he was stuck in a perilous dilemma: how can he comfort Burkey’s character without disrespecting his deceased wife?
Burkey and Welch both did a wonderful job bringing their scene to life, all the way down to their elderly mannerisms: hunched backs and slow and deliberate movement across the stage.
Costume and makeup were well done too, as their black attire signaled that they were at a funeral and the subtle wrinkles painted onto their faces added to the believability of their old age.
With the help of her old high school sweetheart the woman starts to realize that, despite legitimately wanting her shirt back, she really just misses her sister.
For her, the jealousy she feels is a way to keep her sister alive, for the presence of envy is preferable to the absence of a loved one.
Together, the two help each other reconcile with the loss, showing the play’s message as stated in the program: new beginnings are created through difficult endings as long as we do not allow the past to take hold of our future.