By Matthew Gulick
Last weekend, Bare Bones Theatre Collective put on Town Crier Speaks Festival XVI, a series of student-written and student-directed one-act plays. This year’s festival ran the emotional gamut. From criticisms of religious tradition to a comedic dramatization of soda brand rivalry, from the AIDS epidemic to comatose loved ones, Town Crier alternated between heavy subject matter and lighthearted puns.
Entirely student-driven, The Bare Bones Theatre Collective produces two festivals a year, Town Crier in the fall and Plays Against Humanity in the spring. The collective also supports Ubiquitous They Sketch Comedy and Improv and produces independent student-made theater projects. Bare Bones hosts the occasional guest artist to come in and lead a workshop.
Erin Ganley ‘18 and Castor Kent ’20 put on the festival in Rausch Auditorium. A packed room of friends and family cheered the actors as they delivered their striking, impassioned lines. One refrain from “Bird Brains Puts the Dog to Sleep” comes to mind: the sardonic “He laughed, and I laughed…” repeated with growing gut-wrenching irony.
“Actors of all experience participate in Town Crier and it is part of what makes our festival so unique and accessible to the student body,” Ganley said. This diversity combined with the setting created intimate and powerful performances.
Town Crier kicked off with “Hamlet,” written by Molly McLean and directed by Nate Hess. Hamlet told the story of a brother and sister alone on a deserted island some substantial time after a catastrophic plane crash. Though potentially confusing (one student I spoke to thought the play took place in a post-apocalyptic future), the play spun out a compelling setting of Christian mythology combined with airline travel directions. For example, instead of crossing themselves the siblings performed the directional arm gestures that airport workers make on the runway with orange batons. These garbled religious translations, while comedic, held a desperate poignancy as the two survivors searched for assurance in a hopeless situation.
“Bird Brains Puts the Dog to Sleep” followed. Written by Alice Hudson with direction from Tess Berger, this play ran as more of a dual spoken-word performance. Like “Hamlet,” it featured characters grappling with the meaning of a messed-up existence. Fast-paced and hard-hitting, the play told the story of two victims of the AIDS epidemic, the destruction it wrought on lives and communities and how people come to express the darkest of circumstances. Without pause for thought, “Bird Brains” left me a bit confused and deeply unsettled. Perhaps this was designed to mimic the experience of AIDS victims themselves, but some rhetorical moves the play made seemed to require more time for processing. In any case “Bird Brains” provided excellent performances that deserved a second viewing.
Laura Uyeki’s “Lovestruck,” directed by Chloe Grossman, told the tale of a young girl’s first love who tragically becomes comatose before she can make her affections known. The play dealt with themes such as the struggle of expressing one’s vulnerability, the happy terror of falling in love and the power of a mother’s unconditional support. Despite time-worn romantic tropes, Lovestruck’s actors still sucked me in and I found myself leaning forward as the play drove on to its dramatic conclusion.
In “Coke & Pespi,” writer Allie Lawrence and director McKenna Johnson imagined a conversation between the two iconic drinks. A much-needed relief from the dark performances that preceded, playful “Coke & Pepsi” gave the audience genuine pun-based laughs while managing to authentically portray real friendship challenges. In a way, this play put on the most realistic interpretation of relationships, demonstrating their healing power and the baggage we bring into them.
Eli Goulding ’18 attended the second night of the festival.
“This is my first time going to Town Crier. I definitely should have gone earlier; it was really well-produced and covered a variety of subjects. My favorite one was probably the one on AIDS because it’s such a relevant subject; not just in the 80’s and 90’s but even now, today, we don’t have enough awareness about it. But ‘Coke & Pepsi’ was super cute; the actors were both really good,” they said, reflecting a general audience impression of the event.
Matthew Cooper Perrone played Pepsi.
“I thought the process was really fun and rewarding. It’s cool that students can get together and self-produce plays, which I never thought I’d be a part of, but it’s really cool to see,” he said.
For theater-lovers of all stripes, Town Crier provides a creative platform for students to explore and grow as writers, directors and actors.
More info on the group is available on their Facebook page, “Bare Bones Theatre Collective at UPS.