'Babbelon' Experiments With Foreign Tongues

Author: Freeman White

This past weekend in the Hepburn Zoo, two of Middlebury's senior theater majors, Susie Carter '02.5 and Jennie Luening '02 crafted their final independent theater project, "Babbelon," into an exploration of language. The languages explored included eye contact, Turkish, inspiration of breath, Spanish, facial expressions, English, sign language, French, choreographed movement and crow caws. All were portrayed as legitimate forms of communucation. No one form was suggested as superior. Rather, each language was shown with equal honesty and intention.

These forms were all emphasized by the minimalist scene design, which was round and limited distraction, sharpening focus onto the beauty of each language. Timothy Riedel '02.5, the play's scenographer, is to be commended for this skillful design of both lighting and set.

Most importantly, his setting forced the audience to watch the actions on stage as well as the reactions of fellow spectators. At one point, following a section of choreographed movement, an audience member non-vocally gestured her astonishment to a friend across the room. This was one of many poetic reflections of the action on stage.

The audience's sense of astonishment was fitting, given the talented performances from the cast. Carter and Luening delivered their final Middlebury performances with skill.

Carter's joyful stage presence added levity to the production. In addition, her choreography did justice to movement as grounds for communication and dialogue. Some of Carter's solo movement was later echoed by the ensemble, further emphasizing its expressive qualities. In the final scene, using only facial expressions and breath, she conveyed the gamut of emotion from ecstasy to depression. The lighter tone of her earlier joy emphasized the forceful impact of her final actions.

Luening delivered a strong and multi-leveled performance. Her strong physical actions during a monologue in which she spoke only French helped her captivate a primarily Anglophone audience. The more serious characters Luening played early on contrasted beautifully with her final image in the last scene where she seemed to be hovering on a happy cloud of mirth and contentment.

In addition to the two principal actors, the rest of the ensemble cast gave solid performances. Seda Savas '05 delivered a powerful monologue spoken in Turkish. The lighting in this scene created a very solitary world in which Savas' character existed. At times the high moments in Savas' performance relied too heavily on loud volume and lacked in intention. While this pattern seemed more like a habit than a strong choice, it did emphasize the tenderness of the more intimate moments in her performance.

Marieka Peterson '04 and Cassidy Freeman '04 showed their skill and energy in a scene from "The Murder of Crows' by Mac Wellman in which the ensemble all played crows that conversed with each other. In this scene Freeman and Savas' characters have a theological argument in which Freeman's character elucidates some interesting points. For example, the crows bring up the idea that maybe they aren't using the right language. This begs the question of whether there are languages that are right or wrong. What is language? If crows can debate linguistics, it seems like any language is feasible. Many of the core tenants of the collage were made apparent in this scene.

Nick Olson '02 and Dan Eichner '05 played off each other well in a scene from "The Importance of Being Earnest." Olson's work as Petruchio, opposite Susie Carter as Kate from Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew," fell a little short of the possibilities the text offered. The saucy relationship between the two characters seemed too general and the stakes in the scene never really seemed as high as they could have been. To the actors' credit it is a difficult scene to start in the middle of as they chose to do.

In Eichner's monologue he seemed stuck on one emotional level. This was remedied at times when interacting with the other characters in his scene from "The Importance of Being Earnest." On a positive note, Eichner demonstrated clear and resonant vocal technique throughout the collage.

Jen Driscoll '02 aided the performances of the ensemble with her directorial eye. Her collaboration with Carter and Luening helped shape many of the scenes.

Overall this production accomplished what it set out to do. It investigated language and encouraged the audience to do so as well. As the collage's title implies, the ensemble's collaborative process was akin to the construction of the biblical Tower of Babel.

The use of "on" in the title may imply that the discovery of language is not over, the tower is left unfinished — the process of discovery will go on.