I thought it was really interesting how they used comic book art as a storyboard for the entire play as it was happening. Steve would narrate the story and when a big plot point happened he would put it up on the wall in storyboard form. It shows that he likes to express his feelings and tell his story in a certain way: through art. When he is in the courtroom he seems more terrified and less willing to share his life experiences and be present. I don't blame him for that because of course I would rather express myself through art than in a courtroom. By the end you see him get more comfortable expressing himself in the courtroom and I think his art taught him that. I also really loved the style of the art. It seemed like a superhero comic like Steve's little brother liked. I thought that was sweet to have them hint that he was thinking about his brother when he was writing his movie. His film teacher (Chris Rickett) also came into the courtroom and he was asked if Steve was a truthful kid. And he said he thought he was because of his movies. I think that helped Steve seem like a good person to the judge and jury.
Steve's mom (Alana Arenas), dad (Kenn E. Head), brother (Tevion Devin Lanier), and Steve all seemed very close. They seemed to like spending time together until Steve got into trouble on winter break. It was so heartbreaking to see his mom get so sad and mad at the police officers when they were taking Steve away. The family tried to keep the bond that they had with Steve even when they couldn't touch him because there was no touching allowed in the place where they could visit him in jail. You could see the little brother really missed him--like how he would try and wave to his big brother from outside the prison because children weren't allowed. He would play superhero with Steve and that was so cute and made it even more awful when they took Steve away. There was a scene where Steve's dad was coming for a visit and he could not handle seeing his son in jail. At the end of the scene, he walked off crying. It made it more real, and it made me cry. I feel like you see moments in this play where the people in the story pour out all their feelings at once. That makes for very intriguing characters.
It was interesting how they cast each actor, except Steve, as more than one role. It was awesome to see the huge switch in their characters that they had. Every character was so different from the others. I found that very enjoyable. I thought it was interesting how the dad also played Bobo, a person who was involved with the robbery and he seemed to be trying to get everyone else in trouble so he wasn't the only one getting in trouble. The dad was so caring and sweet and just wanted to help his son get out. The actress who played the mom also played the prosecutor and she wasn't on Steve's side. I thought it was amazing how her whole physique gained so much more posture when she was the lawyer. It was cool to see her snap into two very different characters. The actor who played the little brother also played Osvaldo who was basically bullying Steve in their neighborhood. I thought it was interesting how the same actors who played the family also played people who were against their son and brother. There was also a very poised judge and a unreliable witness cousin, which were very very different characters as you may have guessed, and they were played by the same person (Ginneh Thomas). She was King's (Namir Smallwood) cousin and his alibi and her entire testimony seemed to be mostly about her lamp. Seeing the witness become the judge after the testimony was pretty funny. I think it was good to have some comedic moments in a play that is mainly very depressing.
I almost have some sympathy for King, even though he seems to have done more wrong that Steve, because he is also not being fairly tried. And Bobo seemed to have sold him out on stuff that might not even have been truthful. I think that makes a very complicated and interesting character when you don't know how you feel about them or their situation. Also Steve's lawyer (Cheryl Graeff) fits in the same category because you have mixed feelings about her. She is doing her job well but she seems sometimes to not want to be in the same room with her client. Whenever he wants to thank her for anything, she wants to get somewhere else.
People who would like this show are people who like cool storyboards, connected families, and lamp testimony. I think that people should definitely, definitely go see this show. I thought this was a really awesome show. It was very powerful and intriguing and I really liked it.
Photos: Michael Brosilow
Vladimir, who gets called Didi, and Estragon, who gets called Gogo, meet two people while they are waiting for Godot; they are Pozzo (Christian Castro) and Lucky (Jordan Arredondo). The show implies that Pozzo is a political figure and he seems to have power over people during the apocalypse thing that is happening. I think it is interesting how they made him a political figure because a lot of political figures now are a lot like Pozzo. Some of them abuse their power. Lucky is actually much older than Pozzo and is working for him as basically his slave. Pozzo abuses his power over Lucky to scare him and make him do what he wants. I think Pozzo is a really terrifying character to the other characters in the show because they don't know who he is but he clearly has a lot of power over people. He makes Lucky do this strange dance and go into this academic paper monologue which kind of seems like it is about religious figures and then occasional bird noises. I thought that was very weird but very interesting to see what this person who never really speaks keeps in his mind. He hasn't said anything up until this point and he seems to have all these facts stored in his head. When Gogo and Didi see how Pozzo treats Lucky, they see what he can do to a person and that makes them a little more terrified of him.
In act two, near the end, there is a strange sequence where basically Didi and Gogo are swapping around different hats. For a good amount of the play the optimist is Didi and the pessimist is Gogo. Didi alaways thinks Godot will be here any minute and every time he is not. And Gogo thinks "he's never going to come, why don't we just leave?" And they start putting hats on each other's heads: Lucky's hat, Didi's hat, and Gogo's hat. (This must be a pretty terrible apocalypse because there is no fashion whatsoever.) I think it means in the final part of the play that they swap around who is the optimist and who is the pessimist. Didi basically loses hope that Godot will ever come. He's wearing Lucky's hat when he's doing this, and I think that means that he is weaker, so it is harder for him to be hopeful. And I think he might be able to see things more clearly because Lucky's hat makes you think. I would say that Beckett thinks pessimists are more likely to be right. From what I know of his work, he seems to be a pessimist.
I noticed that if you put the names Didi and Gogo together, you kind of get the name Godot. So maybe they are waiting for each other, which is adorable. They are kind of the cutest couple, but they don't really know it. I think that Gogo is actually in love with Didi, but Didi might not be in love with Gogo, but you can't be completely sure. It could be about friendship and not at all about romance. They have a close bond which you can see when Gogo is like "I'm leaving" but he comes back after a night. He clearly needs to be around Didi. They kind of don't want to leave each other's side. Even when they are talking about killing themselves, they want to do it together.
People who would like this show are people who like close relationships, swapping hats, and occasional bird noises. I thought this was a good show. I thought the actors were all very good, and I think the script is insanely weird, but I liked it for that. I think Waiting for Godot is a really interesting play to try and figure out.
Photos: Sergio Soltero
I was so happy to be chosen as a finalist for the GenZ Critics Club film review contest this year. You can read my review of Moana on their site. While you are there, check out the other great reviews!
I really liked the aesthetic of the show. I think they took inspiration from The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, which is a painting from the 18th century of a woman on a swing in a very fancy dress with a hat and surrounded by a frame of trees. And there is a guy who is getting an "accidental" view up her skirt. The set (by Kevin Depinet) has a swing, the floor looks glossy like a painting, and the background looks like it has the trees and clouds from the painting, which I think is very cool looking. The style of the play seems very romanticized. It is about attraction more than true love. And the painting's other name is The Happy Accidents of the Swing, which I think refers to what one of the men in the painting's view is. He is not really falling in love with her, he just thinks she is attractive. The costumes (by Christina Poddubiuk) also look exactly like the painting. All of the women wore flat hats and pouffy dresses. And the men wore buckle shoes and breeches. I would happily wear any of these costumes. I think they are beautiful.
My favorite scene was where Berowne had written a love letter to Rosaline and he was thinking what she may think of it. And then the King walked in talking about his lady love, even though they had all sworn not to even talk to any women. And then Berowne hides up in a tree as quickly as he possibly can, which is, of course, hilarious to see. And then Longaville enters and the King hides and Longaville talks about his lady love and says some pretty embarrassing stuff. And then Dumaine walked in and Longaville hid and Dumaine starts talking about his love. And then the King pops out and starts talking about how terrible what Dumaine and Longaville have talked about is and how Berowne would be disappointed in them for falling in love. And then Berowne pops out of the tree scaring the crap out of everyone and starts talking about how the King has also fallen in love and written this love letter to the Princess. Then Costard (Alex Goodrich), who is basically a messenger who has great comic timing and who is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, runs in with Jaquenetta (Maggie Portman) who has Berowne's letter to Rosaline. Once Berowne sees it and realizes what the contents are, he rips it up and starts to eat it. The rest of the scene is going on behind him and he is at the front of the stage eating his letter. I was dying laughing. Eventually everyone makes him spit out the letter he has been eating and they realize what it is. He's just been chastising everyone else about writing love letters, so this is a pretty embarrassing experience for him.
I noticed a few moments that seemed a lot like other Shakespeare plays. I'm going to sue Shakespeare for plagiarizing Shakespeare! Don Armado (Allen Gilmore) had fallen in love with Jaquenetta and he seemed like Orsino in Twelfth Night because he was always mourning over being in love as if it were a terrible thing. And he wants music from his page Moth (Aaron Lamm) to make him feel better about being in love. Another moment I thought was a lot like A Midsummer Night's Dream. They basically did a play within a play, about the Nine Worthies, like he will later with "the most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe" in Midsummer. They have one scared performer each: Sir Nathaniel (Greg Vinkler) and Snug the Joiner. There's the overly confident one: Don Armado and Bottom. And there's the badly cast one: Moth as Hercules and Flute as Thisbe. I also think that Rosaline seems a lot like Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing. She's witty, smart, and stands with her friends above anything, like Beatrice does with Hero. I think it is very interesting that Shakespeare would take inspiration from his own plays. Basically he tries out these characters and situations in Love's Labor's Lost, one of his earlier plays, and then he makes them more well-thought-through and more complex in the later plays.
People who would like this show are people who like eating love letters, swing "accidents," and self-plagiarism. I think people should definitely go see this show. I thought it was an absolute blast and I loved it.
Photos: Liz Lauren
There is loud hip hop music playing when you first come in. I am a fan of a lot of hip hop, so I was nodding my head and tapping my feet. It is supposed to make some people feel uncomfortable and other people feel more comfortable. I think I was in the middle. I would have liked all the songs, except I was sitting between my parents, and there were some very explicit lyrics happening. There were definitely people--not my parents--around me that really did not like the music and felt really uncomfortable. Elliott (Elliott Jenetopulos) and Will (Will Wilhelm), have been dancing around in the audience and handing out ear plugs. Then they start the show and start to talk about themselves and what pronouns they each prefer to be referred to as (they and them), and basically warning everyone that the rest of the players in the show will be straight white men. And they tell you about the experiment with the loud music. Some people seemed to feel a little betrayed by the experiment, but the program explained it as well and I found the experiment very interesting. I would like to do an experiment like this myself. They said, "If you enjoyed that music, congratulations on your moment of privilege." It made me think about how there are a lot of people who might not feel comfortable at a typical show. Basically throughout the rest of the show Elliott and Will's job is to move the actors into position to start each scene, which I think is very interesting because it reversed the usual power of pushing around people. Gender nonconforming people get to control the type of people who have been trying to control them, straight white men. (Roll credits.)
There is a very big escalation of what is at stake for this family. Near the beginning, Jake and Drew break out this old board game that their mom made called "Privilege," which was intended to make them not jerks. That is the lowest the stakes are, because they are just playing a game. But by the end everyone is talking about what makes a terrible person and who in their family abuses their privilege. Basically they are trying to figure out what is wrong with Matt when he bursts into tears at the dinner table and why he is living at home with his dad when he graduated from Harvard and has always been smart and stood up for equal rights. In a normal play with straight white men in it, they just think about themselves as people, not as straight white men, which is a cool difference about this play. There are many plays that are about the experience of being gay, a woman, or a person of color. And there are lots of plays about straight white men but they don't think of themselves as having a straight-white-man experience--they just think of it as the experience. When some people think of a show called Straight White Men written by a woman of color, they might think that it is just going to be really really mean to white men. But it is actually trying to understand them, and I think it does a pretty gosh-darn good job of it by showing a bunch of straight white men trying and sometimes failing to be good people and thinking about how to use their privilege in an effective way for the rest of the world.
I felt like the sweetest moment was after they had gotten into a fight but they decide to make up by having a dance party all together. Matt seems very shy throughout the entire show, but in this scene he busts out some cartwheels and other gymnastics moves and does the worm and it is mindblowing. It is just so sweet to see this family having so much fun together. Another fun family tradition is where Ed buys pjs for his entire family and they have a pj modeling runway, which is hilarious. Basically each of them strikes a hilarious pose, anything from album cover to fashion magazine. I thought it was hilarious and adorable to see the cute family traditions. There is this one moment where Ed spills some chips and Matt had to vacuum them up and he had also just heard everyone there talking crap about him behind his back. The spilling was very convincing; I almost thought something had gone wrong. And Matt just comes out with a vacuum cleaner and does the longest vacuum cleaning ceremony you have ever seen. He's so zoned in on his vacuuming and making everything in that section spotless. Everyone has to put up their feet and they all sit silently. That is comedy gold.
People who would like this show are people who like loud hip hop, privilege board games, and vacuum cleaning ceremonies. I thought this was a really awesome show. I think it had a great story and message. I really loved it.
Photos: Michael Brosilow
Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called The Scottsboro Boys. The book was by David Thompson and the music and lyrics were by John Kander and Fred Ebb. Direction and choreography were by Samuel G. Roberson, Jr. It was about the Scottsboro case, but it was a musical. The Scottsboro case was a case of nine African-American men and boys who were accused unfairly of rape during the Depression: Olen Montgomery (Travis Austin Wright), Andy Wright (Maurice Randle), Eugene Williams (Cameron Goode), Haywood Patterson (James Earl Jones II), Clarence Norris (Stephen Allen, Jr.), Willie Roberson (Izaiah Harris), Ozie Powell (Trequon Tate), Roy Wright (Jerome Riley, Jr.), and Charles Weems (Jos N. Banks). That certainly isn't the most fun topic for a musical, but it is a story that needs to told. It is heartbreaking, disturbing, and it made me feel really angry and sad about the injustice that was done to these people.
My favorite song was "Go Back Home." It made me cry because they all had such beautiful voices and you could feel how much they wanted to get home to what they missed. Haywood and Eugene lead this song and they have little talking sections where they talk about what they hope to see when they get home. Eugene was talking about how he was really hoping he could get home for his 12th birthday, which is really sad because he is still very young but he has still been accused of this terrible crime because of a lie someone told. And he spends many years in prison because of it. It was insane to me that a little boy would be accused of something like this. Haywood had the most tragic ending, in my opinion. I think that by the end when you think back on the song it is even more sad. Even though he was innocent and wouldn't even lie, he still never gets to go home in the show.
Victoria Price (Banks) and Ruby Bates (Tate), the accusers, were played by two of the Scottsboro Boys, but they at first did not "make friends with the truth." And Victoria never does. Even though they were terrible people, they still made pretty funny characters. Especially Ruby because she wasn't as evil; she didn't make the plan and she also tried to get them out of prison once they had been put in. Both characters had great mannerisms, like they seem to always be fanning themselves. Ruby had a mink scarf that whenever someone would get on her nerves, she would scare them away with one of the faces. I think it was appropriate to have these characters portrayed by men because the Scottsboro Boys had been stereotyped and now that they have a chance to stereotype someone else, they do. I think that is pretty satisfying. There was only one female actor in this entire show, though, but she had a very important role even though she didn't speak until the end. She played a very key role in the civil rights movement's history. I thought that was a great reveal at the end: who she was and why she was thinking of the Scottsboro Boys.
The brothers, Andy and Roy Wright, were very close and they never seemed to get mad at each other. They seemed to help each other through everything, which was a very sweet relationship to see. They were going somewhere to get jobs to help their family and now they don't know if their family can pay for everything. They both seem to try and help the rest of the Scottsboro Boys get in touch with their families. Also, because one of them was a little older than the other, they didn't get to leave the prison together. Seeing them hug when they may never see each other again was so heartbreaking. This had a lot of emotional impact on me. You got to know so much about how they missed their mom and their sister, so when one of them gets to go off and see them and the other one may die, it was really moving.
All of the Scottsboro Boys were also part of a minstrel show in this version. It was run by the Interlocutor (Larry Yando), who would basically ask everyone questions. Mr. Bones (Denzel Tsopnang) and Mr. Tambo (Mark J.P. Hood) are basically like clowns in the minstrel show and in the real story they play many of the white characters. I thought that was interesting because you kind of got to see the opposite of the blackface minstrel show, where white people played black characters. I thought that the minstrel theme sometimes was disturbing though. It seemed as if they were trying to make light out of a very very dark story. I also think that because the show was written by white men, it seemed as if instead of progressing forward in history they were taking it back to a bad time but not because the musical needed it. I think if black writers had chosen to stage a minstrel show, it would have felt more comfortable and progressive because it wouldn't have felt like the writers were doing the same thing the Interlocutor was doing in the show--that is, making African-American people perform a minstrel show. I think the writers were trying to show the story in a unique way, but they leave themselves open to being seen as unprogressive. I did think the performers and the director (and possibly the writers, but it is hard to tell) worked to make the performances in the minstrel scenes more rebellious against stereotypes of their culture. You could see by the performers' expressions during the minstrel numbers that they were not enjoying this. But whenever they would do the sincere story, they seemed to be really feeling it, identifying with their characters and wanting the story to be told.
People who would like this show are people who like touching sibling relationships, going home, and scary scarves. I think this was a good show. It had some great and touching moments and I enjoyed it. It made me want to learn a lot more about this case and it made me think a lot about injustices that are happening today and how we all need to do something about it.
Photos: Kelsey Jorissen
I thought that all of the scenes had great character connections. All the boys seemed like they had known each other for years and the new teacher, Irwin, seemed so confused around this sea of hormones and hyperactivity. I feel like you really get to see how close the boys are in the scenes with Hector. They all seem to know exactly what each other's sense of humor is and what they can do to make the others laugh. They had this tradition where they would take a movie and reenact one scene from it and see if Hector could guess what it was from. Of course, Hector was very knowledgable and knew most of the movies, but sometimes he would trick them and pretend that he didn't at first. They did a scene from Now, Voyager featuring Timms (Stephen McClure) and Lockwood (Matthew Harris) which was hilarious. They are two people who are very passionate about each other. The way Timms said "love" when he, as Charlotte, said "People who love you" was so shaky and regal at the same time and it was super funny. Lockwood was trying to be very very stoic and Lockwood did not really seem that way, so the result was that hilarity ensued. This scene showed how connected the boys were to each other and to the teacher because they have so much fun together and enjoy spending time together. That made the end all the more sad.
Posner has had a huge crush on Dakin, and Dakin knows that he does but he doesn't really seem to be mad about it or think that it is unusual. I think that relationship was very intriguing. Even though Dakin is not very nice to Posner about his affection for him, he isn't homophobic. Dakin basically never seems to take anything seriously and he uses the fact that he thinks everyone is attracted to him aggressively. He becomes a lawyer for a living which makes a lot of sense because he tricks people into being on his side even when it is not the right choice. Posner, however, doesn't seem to do as well as Dakin in love and life. He seems to be a really good person; he is nice and smart, but for some reason no one seems to care. And Posner, even though he likes Dakin, doesn't get the fairy tale ending he wanted. He gets something like it, but not what he wanted.
There are four different views on education in this play. The headmaster (Andrew Pond) thinks that all teaching should be very strict and precise. He seems to think that there are teachers and there are students and they cannot become friends or be on the same level. There is also a same-level teaching style; it is to become best friends with all of his students and have a blast all day, like Hector! This kind of closeness may lead to inappropriate relations, which is a problem with it, but it doesn't have to be that way if the teacher doesn't allow it. You can also be a parental figure like Dorothy Lintott (Lisa Savegnago). She seemed to be the sweetest teacher in the school and celebrates her students' ups and helps them when they are down. And then there's Irwin. Well, all he seems to care about is getting his students into a good school. I don't think he really wanted to befriend any of his students. It kinda seemed like he teaches for himself to get a good reputation. But by the end he seems slightly swayed by his students to become friends with them. I agree with Hector that learning should be fun and with Dorothy that you should be nice but also give students hard work, but I also agree with Irwin that sometimes you have to learn things that aren't fun for the sake of your education. I don't agree that you should lie if you are trying to get into a good college. I think you should tell the truth (which Irwin doesn't) because if the school doesn't agree with you, you don't want to go to that school.
People who would like this show are people who like unrequited crushes, different thoughts on education, and reenacting movies. I think people should go see this show. I think this is a great play and this production has a lot of really talented actors in it. I really enjoyed it.
Photos: Ian Smith, Katie Hunter
