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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

U.S. Drag Pleases Crowds at Seeler Studio

Outside the Seeler Studio Theater on Friday night, a palpable excitement filled the air. Students, professors and community members crowded the upper lobby of the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts, all grinning and whispering to each other, “that was great.” And it was.

They were talking about U.S. Drag. Directed by Assistant Professor of Theater Alex Draper ’88, the theater department production ran last week from Oct. 25-27.

One of the only thoroughly contemporary pieces the College has done in recent years, U.S. Drag was an entertaining and affecting satirical look at modern American culture. It explored today’s sensationalized violence and celebrity obsession, with a splash of millenial entitlement.

Caitlin Rose Duffy ’15.5 and Meghan Leathers ’13.5 were lovely as the leads. Respectively, they played Allison and Angela: two intelligent yet lazy young women who yearn for fame and fortune, but don’t want to put in the work. Instead, they decide that the reward money for catching Ed, a serial killer, is just what they need for everlasting gratification. Duffy and Leathers did a good job playing up their characters’ sense of entitlement and misappropriated intelligence, garnering big laughs from the audience.

The costumes were all clothes the actors conceivably could own themselves, and the costume designers, Artist-in-Residence Jule Emerson and Associate Costume Designer Danielle Nieves did, a nice job appropriating them according to the characters and plot points. Allison’s shift from skintight dresses to pearl and sweater combos, for example, worked especially well to mark the character’s mental transition from apathetic party girl to wannabe happy housewife.

The sound designer, Allison Rimmer, executed transitions that gave a nice tone to the different scenes, and the songs were both recognizable but not entirely expected.

The show also included a strong group of supporting characters. Chelsea Malone ’15 was distinctive as Mary, one of Ed’s first victims. Charlotte Michaelcheck ’15 played four different roles and was consistently funny in all of them.

The characters were entertaining in part because of their grounding in stereotypes. Chris, played by Matt Ball ’14, was the epitome of a tortured artist. Greg Dorris ’13 as James was the perennial Mr. Nice Guy (although with a penchant for images of battered people). Played by Adam Milano ’15, Evan the Ed’s Victims Group leader was comical in a way that hit particularly close to home; he was as obsessively helpful and respectful of others’ feelings as if he were running a sociology class.

The characters were not so much stereotypes, as “archetypal in relation to their attitudes towards women,” said Noah Berman ’13, who played Ned. Ned is Allison and Angela’s rich landlord who is awkward and unlucky with the ladies.

As explained at the round table luncheon on Friday, the male characters in the show all fall somewhere on the scale of sexism — ranging from hostile to benevolent. Their demeanor towards the female characters varies from blatantly aggressive to smothering and supportive. The men are never completely lovable nor totally insufferable, however, which creates an interesting dynamic throughout the show.

It helps that the likability of the protagonists, Allison and Angela, is also questionable. The girls were unapologetic about their willingness “to seek love and happiness, [but] settle for rent money.” The complexity to the female characters only added to the show. In casting the two girls as neither saints nor sinners, the play became a refreshing exploration of what it means to be a female in the world today — a concept that feels particularly current given the amount of attention women have been getting this election cycle.

In addition to a focus on the female experience, U.S. Drag is also, at its core, a story about the desire for connection. The title, in fact, comes from the idea of a peculiar sort of longing — the desire for that “something more” — that is so distinctly American.

The show’s dream sequence exemplified this concept. Through the surrealism of the dance, choreographed by Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Catherine Cabeen, Allison was made to appear visually isolated from the other clubgoers. The dancers appeared hilariously distorted and almost inhuman. The sequence made tangible Allison’s feelings of separation and emptiness, albeit in an entertaining fashion.

U.S. Drag was written by Gina Gionfriddo, an award-winning American playwright and screenwriter. She was originally talking about mid-90s New York, where no one knew his or her neighbor. In a city where people interacted like ships passing in the night, Gionfriddo’s play seemed particularly apropos.

Fast-forward 20 years, and U.S. Drag is more relevant than ever. As Draper discussed during the round table before the show, American life is fast-paced and can feel so full of emptiness. With the popularity of shows like “Jersey Shore” and “Keeping up with the Kardashians,” the connection between hard work, success and meaning seems particularly up in the air.

That’s a concept we constantly struggle with as college students, and last week’s production did a nice job of making that connection. With its mixture of amusement and substance, U.S. Drag brought home the question of what it means to be young and searching — in New York, in the world or even right here in Middlebury.


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