Story
On the surface, the play revolves around the competition and rivalry between Mark and Christy. In actuality, it’s a hilarious satire on the current political climate happening in our Country. The play is a clever extended metaphor with each character representing one of the personalities that can be found in politics.
Main Characters
Mark – well-rounded; has an intriguing arc, from refusing to use the Super PAC to giving in then finding out of the reality of politics that lead him to the ethics he holds to himself
Christy – good foil to Mark, emphasizing his ethics, a nice plot twist with her working with the same campaign manager to bring out the corrupt nature of politics.
Kyle – good comedic relief if the play became too serious
Gloria – good villain, helped exposition for the play, a good foil to Mark, made Mark and Christy appeal more to the audience.
Dialouge
lively dialogue with some funny jokes put in there
Metaphor
The play was a funny satire on the political scene. Gloria being used to demonstrate the corruptness of Super PACs, the debate scenes representing the absurdness and mud throwing that we’ve grown accustomed to, the revelation of Christy being lead by Gloria shining light on the suspicious, backdoor nature of politics. All these instances culminate into a clever, hilarious commentary, that puts our political scene into perspective.
Behind The Scenes (courtesy of Shankara Narayanan)
Without the aid of the Tech crew, the play couldn’t have gotten as successful as it was. They were put to work with many changes and provisions added but were able to push through and get it done and made sure the play ran smoothly all while persisting and not buckling under the pressure. Such an effort can’t go unnoticed.
The sound design also deserves a lot of credit for being able to set the mood of a very patriotic play with an array of a great selection of songs such as American Idiot by Green Day, Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen, Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus and many more creating a no less than perfect atmosphere for the show. The light design should get a lot of praise due to the many light cues which needed to be deadly precise; and the audience experienced exactly that: perfect.
The work put in by the actors should not be undermined. There were almost 70 pages of dialogues and cues that needed to be memorized down to the tee which took a lot of time to perfect but the many talented actors at our disposal demonstrated their theatrical prowess and it definitely showed.
And last but not least, the great mind of Ms. Grilliot possibly saved the play from being too awkward. Throughout Tech Week, when practicing the prop changes, the tech crew had to pick up the individual chairs and move them to the designated spots which were extremely loud and took the immersion out from the experience of watching the play looking from the audience’s point of view. Then, on the day of the play, Ms. Grilliot decided to make a high risk/high reward call to abandon the method of picking up the chairs and instead replaced it with an idea where 3 chairs are on a mat with two mats each on both sides, meaning we have fewer chairs but now an easier, quieter way to move the props onto the stage without the hassle of bumping into things and causing a ruckus, avoiding any instance of unnecessary noise for the audience.
