Fugue “When I was eight, I was murdered.” “I was only seven.” “I was ten and should have known better.” Did your parents ever tell you not to talk to strangers? “Fugue” by Laura Elizabeth Miller wastes no time in telling you why. Directed by Maya Odei ’12, this DramaLab tells the chilling tale of three little girls and their encounters with a serial killer (Adam Tohn ’10). The girls, (Evan Eads ‘12, Caroline Colombo ‘09 and Louisa Chafee ’09) narrate the disturbing story of their deaths from Heaven, all the while exuding a childish naïveté that could bring tears to your eyes. Odei took a leap of faith when she selected a horror story for her first directing challenge. “I chose this because it was really creepy and different from regular DramaLabs, which are [usually] about girls and boys and relationships,” she said. Odei admitted that she underestimated the role of the director. She laughed, “I just signed up to direct. I didn’t even know what blocking was!” With such a demanding script, Odei said she had to learn a lot in a very short amount of time, especially regarding how to approach the theme. Her cast agreed that conveying the unnerving terror of murder through a child’s perspective was a strange and difficult task. “The fact that [the girls] are so innocent is why it’s so depressing,” said Chafee. The play is indeed sobering and frightening, but Odei is not trying to cause paranoia. She said she thinks the moral is to “trust your intuition.” (As in, obey the instinct that is telling you to attend DramaLabs this Friday…) Confession The lights go up. A pompous detective (Chris Meyer ’11) is in the middle of interrogating a murderer (Sam Oriach ’11). In the corner of the room, the shy stenographer (Morgan Healey ’09) quietly scratches away at a transcript of the confession. Nothing seems awry. No one anticipates that an unexpected character will emerge in an explosion of rage, or what the consequences will be… “It’s a pretty static play at first,” explained first-time director Sarah Hackney ’10. “It’s more grounded in suggestion and implications until the end, when it all kind of comes out in the climax. That part’s fun,” she said. “The full title of the play is ‘Confession: A Dramatic Snapshot,’” Hackney elaborated. “I guess it’s a little snippet of human interaction, exploring how each person is a complex character with different motivations.” Hackney had no trouble identifying her biggest challenge as a director. “We’ve had trouble buckling down,” she admitted. “Everyone’s great and we’re joking around when we remember that the show is in a few days.” Despite their shenanigans, the cast has invested a great deal of effort into the show, spending rehearsals learning stage combat and delving into their characters’ pasts to rationalize their actions on stage. “I am nervous about whether the audience will see and understand the same things I do when they watch the show,” Hackney said. “I’ve seen it so many times that it’s tough to remove myself and watch the show from an outsider’s perspective.” Are you a murderer? Or simply an outsider in search of perspective? In either case, this is one “Confession” you can’t miss. What Are You Doing In There? Parents Ella (Mia Rossi ’10) and Ben (Charlie Cockburn ’11) shout, plead, threaten and bang on the door, but it is no use. Leonard (Scotty Fleming ’10) stubbornly refuses to leave the bathroom. But why? “I chose this script because I really wanted to direct a show that wasn’t set in a place that most DramaLabs are set in,” reflected director Katy Svec ‘11. “So I thought a bathroom was perfect!” In order to stage the show faithfully, Svec and her stage manager Julie Helmers ’10 use a door to split the classroom stage into two rooms, the bathroom and the hallway. “My greatest challenge was trying to balance two different scenes going on at once. You focus on the action in one area and you forget the other. It was like blocking a show twice,” Svec explained. Svec said she gave her actors specific blocking instructions because their actions have to be meaningful and add to the anticipation of the impending climax of the show. Meanwhile, the relationship between Ella and Ben unfolds dramatically on stage, and the tension between all three characters accelerates towards a shocking conclusion. As for a moral, Svec said she settled on “realize what’s going on around you.” Intrigued? Dying to discover the truth? No worries. “What Are You Doing In There?” is coming soon to a theatre classroom near you.
