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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

First-Year Show Considers Changing Role of Techonology

From Oct. 2 to 4, the Theatre Program sponsored the 19th Annual First Years Production: A Cautionary Tale and Others.  Directed by alum Bill Army ’07 and composed entirely of first-years, sophomores, and sophomore Febs. A Cautionary Tale and Others was staged in The Hepburn Zoo to a sold out crowd.

A Cautionary Tale and Others unfolded as a set of interconnected scenes from various recently produced plays, each taking a glimpse at the social and technological changes that have developed over our lifetimes and the new challenges they may pose.  A monologue on the deceptive nature of media and fiction opened the performance, prompting the audience to question the very premise of the show itself. This opener left the audience with the complex question: if fiction is misleading, and leads us to create damaging expectations for ourselves, what are the merits of the fiction presented before our very eyes?

This ambiguity carries through the bulk of the play.  As we observe how dating, gossiping, flirting and mourning have all changed through the proliferation of new digital media, the audience laughed and cringed in equal measure.  While at times serious and certainly tackling serious topics, the play was frequently comic and lighthearted.  Ben Borgmann-Winter ’18, who played the role of Derek, touched on the binary nature of the show.

“Personally, I felt like it stretched me a little bit in the comedic sense,” he said.  “I’ve done more of the dramatic things, but this gave me a couple of different tones to play with.”

Being something of a medley production, the ultimate form of the show was not finalized until somewhat late in the production cycle.

“[Army] didn’t really finish constructing it until after it had been cast,” Borgmann-Winter said.  “For example, he added the ending scene partway through our rehearsals.  In general, it was a very malleable production, so we had a lot of room to work.”

Being a production for first-years, the show was aimed at students unable to audition for the fall faculty productions, since auditions for such shows are in the spring of the preceding year.  This means that the first-year show is on a much tighter production cycle, with three weeks between the first rehearsal and the performances, and it also draws in students with highly disparate experience levels.

“Some people hadn’t been in shows before, while some had been in professional productions, so there was a really wide range of experience,” Borgmann-Winter said.  “Overall, it was a friendly, well-rounded group of folks.”

Jesusdaniel Barba ’18 was the Assistant to the Director for the production.  Prior to his involvement in A Cautionary Tale and Others, Barba had never participated in theatre.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever done anything theatre-related, so it was really cool to work with Bill, who has done such a great amount of acting and theatre,” Barba said.  “It was really interesting to get to know the theatre world and be a part of that niche.”

The production also managed to give more substantial roles to actors who, in the future, may face more competition from upperclassmen.

“It gives us an opportunity to get our feet wet in a lower-key setting with a little less competition,” Borgmann-Winter said.  “It has been set up to give everyone a fair amount to work with.”

Tucked away above the Hepburn lounge, the Zoo was an ideal site for the staging of A Cautionary Tale and Others.  The sparse set design and digital effects were enhanced by the modest setting, while the scenes themselves were strengthened by the intimacy of the venue.  Characters who existed onstage for only minutes at a time could more easily connect with an audience that sat only a few feet away.

The play’s preoccupations with technology manifested physically in the use of innovative digital effects.  In a memorable scene, the text-message exchange between a couple was projected visually to the audience while the characters sat in their respective rooms.  Some scenes used digital projections to act as backdrops, such as the skyline of a city.  Other scenes eschewed the use of digital effects altogether and could almost exist in any sitcom or theatre production of the last twenty or thirty years.

One scene in particular stood out as a powerful contrast to many of the more pronounced references to technology and social media.  Coming in somewhere towards the middle of the play, Derek (Borgmann-Winter) and his girlfriend, Vivienne (Isabella Alonzo ’18), sat on a bench overlooking the water in New York City, discussing future plans and the potential challenges they may face as a long-distance couple attending schools on opposite ends of the country.

Both Borgmann-Winter and Barba felt this scene paralleled the experiences of many of the college-aged members of the audience and incorporated an added dimension to the play, making it less about technology in a strict sense and more about the conflict between tradition and the new, where we have been and where we are headed.

“I’ve been there,” Borgmann-Winter said.  “It’s quite a conversation. I think a lot of people have probably been there, and recently.”

The production frequently forced the audience to confront their own relationship with technology through a biting and frequently comical satire of modern social behaviors.  Yet beneath this farce lay empathetic and complex characters, involved in situations that seemed to be deeply rooted in traditional storytelling.  Despite social media and new technologies, we still obsess over the minutiae of budding relationships, confide in friends, butt-heads with siblings and roommates and struggle to come to terms with death and mortality.  The ways in which we communicate may have changed, but have we as people changed all that much?

The play’s message is ultimately ambiguous, leaving individual audience members to parse out its deeper implications.

“More than anything it’s a warning to be conscious of how you present yourself,” Borgmann-Winter said.  “Like they say in the last scene, it’ll follow you forever.  It’s not so much saying that technology is terrible, it’s more suggesting we be smart, sensible, responsible, respectful.”
Barba also recognized the complicated answers and questions we are left with.

“The ending is ambiguous, but I feel what the play is really suggesting is that we change our habits,” Barba said.  “I don’t think it was saying we should get rid of [technology] completely because it is a part of who we are and what we do now. We just have to make sure it’s not our first priority.”


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