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(01/21/16 12:15am)
What happens when you get a group of Middlebury students together and tell them to solve an important real-world problem using science? For some, this might seem like an overly daunting, if not impossible, task. But for the seven students taking part in the STEM Innovation Program this J-term, the opportunity for hands-on experience addressing relevant, everyday issues is an exciting prospect. Now entering its fourth year, the STEM Innovation Program was founded by Professor of Mathematics Frank Swenton, Professor of Biology Jeremy Ward and Professor of Physics Noah Graham. This year, the team of students includes Shougat Barua ’19, Annie Cowan ’18, Bennet Doherty ’18, Jen Johnson ’18, Aayam Poudel ’18, Robert Pritchard ’19 and Jonah Simon ’18.
The purpose of the STEM Innovation Program is to complement the traditional curriculum. As students draw knowledge from their classes to implement a solution to a scientific or technological problem, the expectation is that this hands-on experience will enrich the relevance of the information presented in classes.
The seven students meet from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday during J-term. Over these intensive four weeks, their task is to identify a problem and design a prototype that addresses it. Graham, Swenton and Ward show up at 10 a.m. each morning for a 30-minute meeting with the group, during which they answer questions and offer feedback on their work. Near the end of J-term, as students transform their collaborative research into a prototype, professors are often called on to facilitate improvisational lab sessions. Professor Graham describes his role as an “advisor in the morning and lab assistant in the afternoon.”
For the most part, the students have a great deal of autonomy, as they set their own deadlines and decide which tasks are necessary to complete. Graham noted that this is no easy feat, as it is often “demanding on students to be the whole process – to make the assignment and then do the assignment.”
The flexibility of their day-to-day schedule lends itself a high degree of self-directed research, collaboration and experimentation. This summer, the group will reconvene for a ten-week research stint on campus to bring the prototype to life. The intensive planning that occurs during J-term will allow them to hit the ground running in June.
Each year’s STEM Innovation Project is shaped by the unique interests and skill sets of the students involved. In 2013, the final product was an automated BTEX biosensor that detects aromatic hydrocarbons – benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX) – in water. In targeting these hazardous organic molecules, students used their biology and physics backgrounds to induce expression of green fluorescent protein (GFP) in the presence of BTEX compounds.
The following year, students created an aquatic surface drone boat and cyanobacteria detection system. The research vessel was put to use in nearby Lake Champlain, where harmful cyanobacteria bloom in the summer. Using remote sensing and robotics, the students programmed the boat with a GPS to retrieve samples from certain parts of the lake. It was an interdisciplinary approach that allowed for the construction of this device: a biology major coded much of the software for the boat, demonstrating the potential of the STEM Innovation Program to foster the secondary interests of its participants.
Finally, last summer’s team sought to design an early warning system of hoof disease in cattle. Traditionally, hoof trimmers use pickup trucks to lift the cow so that the hoof is easily visible; from this point, a physical examination for potential digital dermatitis is simple. However, the students wanted to create a means of detecting the disease earlier. Their efforts culminated in an infrared thermography camera that alerts a farmer of increased blood flow, and thus elevated temperature, in the cow’s hoof – a marker of a foot ailment. Students visited farms in the area and experimented with various forms of basic software to build the hand-held sensor.
In designing the STEM Innovation Program, Graham, Swenton and Ward sought to grant students a breadth and depth of exploration that the standard science curriculum does not.
“The way we go about science in the traditional classroom is a necessary efficiency, Graham stated. “We present a much more linear progression; everything is in a logical structure. Fits and starts are more representative of how science actually proceeds, but it doesn’t fit into a regular semester. Physics has taken four hundred years to get to where it is today; college students only have four. It would be great to follow that meandering path all the time, but it’s not possible.”
When the faculty began assembling their STEM team back in October, they worked to recruit a group with a diverse range of talents, so as to allow for maximum interdisciplinary collaboration.
Annie Cowan ’18, a pre-med sophomore majoring in molecular biology and biochemistry, reflected on her role in the group as they work to figure out their goals and intersecting interests.
“The first week has been almost completely straight talking,” she said. We’re still trying to come up with our big idea. It’s been a lot of sitting around and debating. I try my best to bring people together and make compromises.”
Funding for the program comes from a donor who expressed interest in supporting STEM at the College. This money has helped the team accumulate a basic toolkit of electronics to work with. The copious resources available in McCardell Bicentennial Hall have proved to be a valuable asset as well. Once, students discovered a bacteria-freezing machine that had clearly gone unused for years while hidden away in a closet. In a show of innovation, they pieced it back together, bought replacement parts and put it to great use.
It is this type of spontaneous, creative experimentation that brings such value to the STEM Innovation Program. By venturing boldly into the unknown, students gain experience with problem-solving that can be applied in traditional research labs later on.
“It’s made me think more about real life issues and how I can solve them using science,” computer science major Poudel ’18 said.
Ultimately, the aim of the project is not publication in a journal, but rather the production of something “deliverable.” Guided by a spirit of continuous discovery and interdisciplinary collaboration, the lucky seven students inducted to the STEM Innovation Project are sure to impress this year.
(12/03/15 2:22am)
For years, the College has been home to a variety of bands, acapella groups, chamber music ensembles, improvisational comedy troupes and more. Wide-ranging as the performance venues are on campus, however, there still remains much to be explored. This semester, the newly formed group Middlebury Discount Comedy, also known as MDC, is working to fill a niche that has yet to take hold in the College’s arts scene: sketch comedy.
As opposed to improv comedy, in which nearly all of the material is conjured at the spur of the moment during the performance, a sketch comedy show is made up of a series of short, pre-rehearsed scenes. Of the 20 people who attended the open informational meeting for MDC at the beginning of the semester, twelve students returned with audition sketches, and have been official members of the group since then: Faraz Ahmad ’19, Isabella Alonzo ’18, Liana Barron ’18, Dan Fulham ’18, Shannon Gibbs ’18, Alexander Herdman ’17, Marney Kline ’17.5, Sebastian LaPointe ’18, Peter Lindholm ’17.5, Jack Ralph ’18, Greg Swartz ’17.5 and Joseph Haggerty ’19.
Founded by Shannon Gibbs ’18, MDC is devoted to the creation and interpretation of completely original sketches. In putting together the group, Gibbs explained that she was mainly looking for “a team of writers who could act and actors who could write.”
Six members are theatre majors, five serve as main writers and one works as the technical director. Associate Professor of Theatre Alex Draper acts as the group’s faculty advisor. Providing guidance in the production aspect of the show, he has helped set the stage for high-quality props, costumes and technical work.
Members of MDC view their work as a unique forum for humor on campus.
“This is a necessary outlet for comedy that I think has been missing from Middlebury and that we are more than happy to supply,” Swartz said. “We’ve become accustomed to certain formats, but there’s so much more out there that Middlebury as a school has not really embraced.”
“With sketch comedy, you can meticulously craft what you want your product to be,” Dan Fulham explained. “Improv is awesome, but if there is some sort of point, you can focus what you’re doing a little more.”
For some artists, the pre-written and pre-rehearsed nature of sketch comedy not only provides a mechanism for more nuanced messaging, but also allows for more comfortable expression onstage. Most members of MDC have experimented with improv before, but found it to be incongruent with their natural performance style.
“Improv is hard and scary, because you have a lot of pressure to be funny,” Alonzo explained. “So it’s impressive to watch the other groups do what they do, but at the same time, I’m very comfortable with scripted things, because I get to read it over and over and interpret it how I want.”
Besides starring in a few commercials as a child, Ahmad ’19 had not taken part in any performance venues prior to joining MDC, but described his experience thus far as a “blast.” His integration into the group speaks to the accessibility that the sketch comedy format provides.
That is not to say that the organization has not encountered its fair share of challenges, however. In the crafting of completely original sketches, members have inevitably struggled with writer’s block.
As Kline explained, “It’s hard to get people over the edge to believe that they really can contribute something worthwhile. Coach Shannon has been really good at drawing this out from individuals.”
The subject matter behind MDC’s original sketches ranges from Atwater to the weirdly sexual nature of how humans pet bunnies to an existential candidate in the 2016 presidential campaign who makes his fear of death all too known to the public. Supplemented by brief one-hit jokes in between sketches, MDC’s first show will premiere at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 10 in the Hepburn Zoo.
Through a healthy dose of “random absurdity,” as Fulham put it, the group plans to deliver politically-charged sketches that address on-campus and global issues in a manner that is both silly and thought-provoking.
“I think that there’s not enough satire about Middlebury because we’re all so busy, so we don’t really put our efforts into articulating our thoughts about school in ways more effective than whining in op-eds or to each other,” Kline said. “We think that humor is such a powerful tool for getting real, sometimes controversial, opinions out into the public in ways that might enact change.”
“Although it’s a variety show, we all seem to have come together under this weird amorphous group statement,” Gibbs added. “Very post-modern, very Freudian, very odd. But it’s going to be really fun.”
(11/19/15 1:23am)
Every once in a while, we need a reminder that our progression to a more digital world does not erase the value of analog works. Currently adorning the white walls of the center of Johnson Memorial Building are dozens of mostly black-and-white images of natural scenery, various nooks and crannies on campus, humans caught in spontaneous poses and everything in between. Sponsored by the Program in Studio Art, this photography display is part of the cumulative mid-semester project of Visiting Assistant Professor of Studio Art Gigi Gatewood’s class ART 327: Black and White Darkroom. From Thursday, Nov. 12 until Tuesday, Dec. 1, all are welcome to venture into Johnson Memorial Building to view students’ explorations in the alternative and the traditional.
Black, white and shades of grey and blue are the dominating colors in the room. Papers and fabrics hang from clear thumbtacks on the blank white walls, with each students’ body of chosen works arranged in artful clusters. Some have white borders, some have black and others are contained by nothing at all. A panoramic stroll through the display will evoke recognition in viewers at certain points and curiosity at others, as the images range from familiar scenes in Middlebury to mysterious shadows and shapes to truly ambiguous abstractions. Put simply, it is a documentation of students’ expanding knowledge of foundational photographic practices.
Gatewood’s class is designed to examine the foundational theories and methods of black and white photography, as well as the evolution of photography from traditional to contemporary practices. This fall, students began by studying antique processes that deal solely with light, using the sun and objects around them to create pictures. Next, they moved on to photograms, which are camera-less, silhouette images made by placing an object directly on light-sensitive paper and exposing it to light from an enlarger. Then, students learned to make their own pinhole cameras – small, light-proof boxes with a black interior and a tiny hole in the center of one end instead of a lens. Light from a scene travels through the tiny hole to project an upside-down and backward image on the 4-by-5-inch piece of reactive photo paper on the opposite wall of the box.
Hannah Hudson ’18 used the laborious pinhole technique to capture a photograph of a small fire that broke out in one of the art studios.
“It was really smoky, so I went in, opened up my shutter, took the picture and evacuated,” she said. “I didn’t love this project, but I liked what came out of the process.”
The result is a dark, haunting and slightly blurry image that evokes the sense of an opening scene from a horror movie. There exist a myriad of interpretations for the scene, since it is not clear that flames are the source of the white light pouring from behind the open door. Arranged in a row alongside two other photograms – the first of a bike resting against a brick wall and the second of a girl gazing off in the distance while perched on the steps outside Johnson Memorial Building – the smoky image could be the ambiguously ominous fate of an abrupt three-part narrative.
Photograms around the room appear to have provided an intriguing creative outlet for students. Works range from straightforward to abstract, from delicate white silhouettes of flowers and ferns set against grey backgrounds to a textural manipulation of fabric and salt particles thrown onto photo paper. The effect of the latter piece is dreamy, celestial and slightly chaotic – a testament to the richness of works that can flourish from processes as simple as that of the photogram.
Lucas Onetti ’16.5, an art history major, used the photogram technique to conjure an image that could pass for a scene from reality. Knowing that the more time photo paper interacts with light, the darker it becomes, he organized the placement of eight cardboard cutouts so that each one was exposed to light for increasingly longer periods of time. The resulting image is a landscape reminiscent of the Green Mountains, idyllic in its in steadily darkening shades of gray.
The uncertainty underlying every step of the analog process can be a stumbling block at times, and a spontaneous blessing at others. The delayed nature of image production in these foundational photographic methods often leads to unexpected lighting, sizing and cut-off points in the final prints, since photographers are not able to view an immediate projection of the scene when working with photograms or pinhole cameras. Hudson described the shadow of a hand that accidentally ended up in one of her photos as “a happy, or unhappy, accident.”
“It’s a funky process, and you have to learn how to embrace the mistakes,” Hudson explained. “I went through sheets and sheets of photo paper, reprinting and reprinting. It’s very time-consuming, and you just have to accept that.”
Gatewood sees the lengthy trial-and-error procedure as an integral part of the artistic experience.
“It’s important to get in touch with the mystery inherent in the photographic process,” she said. “You can know technically what you’re doing and frame what you’re doing, and there’s a scientific explanation for everything that’s happening, but there’s still this sense of mystery when you’re in the darkroom developing your print.”
Student endeavors in these photographic mediums were guided by an emphasis on seven different elements: light, composition, mood, line, perspective, texture and space. Lucas Onetti found himself drawn to familiar scenes on campus while exploring these features. One of his shots hones in on the ledge adorned with dead vines outside of Coffrin. The right-hand side of the picture appears in crystal-clear focus before blurring out in the distance, where the fuzzy outlines of bare-branched trees stand tall. What time of day is it? Who is around? And what is happening beyond the ledge? The flexibility of interpretation behind this work shrouds the scene in intrigue, causing the mood to waver between misery and hope, doom and rebirth.
Another more unconventional work by Onetti features the new art installation outside of Axinn. Taken five feet away from the looming structure, the photo is purposely cut off at the edges.
“When I looked at the negative, being closer up added a chaotic nature to it that I didn’t want to contain by adding a border to it,” Onetti explained. “I wanted to let it flow off.”
Subjects of other works in the room include a spider web, a looming storm, a swing set, dew-covered grass, the river by the train tracks and a dozen other everyday scenes in and around Middlebury. While putting the finishing touches on the display, Gatewood commented on the uniqueness of vision inherent in each person.
“One of the first exercises I do is take the class outside,” she said. “Everyone takes ten steps, takes a photo and then shows each other what we have. “There are no two same images. Everyone has their own perspective. I don’t have to do anything. All of this is being created out of the individual.”
The breadth of pieces featured at the exhibit hints at the stunning potential of photography to document the world around us in a way that is insightful, imaginative and thought-provoking. It is reassuring to know that even while society moves around us at a million miles a minute, people are still taking the time to capture ordinary scenes that might otherwise flash through our lives unnoticed.
(11/13/15 3:46am)
Flashing lights, black-and-white video projections of launching aircraft and sounds of revving engines flooded Wright Memorial Theatre this weekend as part of the visceral backdrop for the fall faculty show, Flare Path (Nov. 5-7). Set in a hotel near an RAF Bomber Command airbase during World War II, the play was written by popular English dramatist Terence Rattigan in 1941. Its name refers to the lamps stationed alongside runways that allow aircraft to take off and land in the darkest of hours. The story behind Flare Path, however, is far more than the theatrical perils of air combat, or even the gravity of life in wartime Britain, though these are salient themes – rather, it is a tale of duty, heartache and morals that provides a most telling glimpse into human nature and all of its inner turmoil.
We are all familiar with the quintessential wartime story of men fighting valiantly on foreign fronts whilst their wives and sweethearts eagerly await their return. It is this emotional matter that forms the foundation of Flare Path – though Rattigan, who drew inspiration for the play from his own experiences as a tail gunner during World War II (and miraculously saved the incomplete manuscript amidst a crisis in air combat), added a twist to the tale by dropping a love triangle into the mix.
Actress Patricia Graham, portrayed by Sofia Donavan ’18 in her first Middlebury College theatre performance, is spending the weekend with her husband Teddy, played by Jabari Matthew ’17, at the Falcon Hotel on the Lincolnshire coast, when she is surprised by a visit from her past lover, Hollywood film star Peter Kyle, played by Sebastian LaPointe ’18. To throw a wrench in things, Teddy is suddenly assigned to a night raid over Germany that very evening, leaving Patricia to grapple with lingering feelings for her old flame and a sense of obligation toward a husband whom she barely knows. The couple met and married during one of Teddy’s week-long leaves; Patricia and Peter were madly in love before then and would have married had Peter not been unavailable. With Peter calling for her affection in the wake of his waning career and Teddy counting on her for emotional support, Patricia finds herself trapped in a moral dilemma. Who needs her most?
The presence of two other couples in the hotel contribute further to an already emotionally trying tale. Maudie Miller, portrayed by Quincy Simmons ’18, has managed to take a short time off work to see her husband, tail gunner Sergeant Dave “Dusty” Miller, played by Alex Herdman ’17. Meanwhile, Do- ris, played by Ashley Fink ’18, is visiting her partner Count Skriczevinsky, portrayed by August Rosenthal ’17, a Polish pilot who decided to serve with the RAF after his wife and son were killed by the Nazis. Written at the end of 1941, a point in history when England stood as the lone player against the German National Socialist war machine, Flare Path has a rich premise fraught with tension and uncertainty, prompting an emotional whirl- wind for all parties involved.
Director Richard Romagnoli, a professor of theatre, was careful to address the inner conflicts that the women in the play had to contend with.
“These fliers leave their wives like husbands going off for a day at work. Many never came back,” he said. “The women were powerless to impose their will. Those who were veterans stoically accept it. Patricia, who had just moved to the base to live with her husband, says to him as he’s about to walk out the door on a mission, ‘Teddy, I don’t know what to say,’ to which he replies, ‘Come back.’ It must have been a surreal experience – will he return in six hours or not? I’ve read that around 55,000 RAF bomber crews were killed over Europe between 1939 and 1945.”
Anxiety levels amongst the characters reach their peak when one of the planes is destroyed by the German air force, and Count Skriczevinsky does not return from the mission alongside Teddy and Dusty. The meticulously executed crash scene – the resounding boom, the flickering fluorescent lights and the looks of harrowing shock and dread on the characters’ faces – stood out as one of the most gripping moments of the night.
In creating a backdrop for the play, Romagnoli explained that he tried to “give the war a presence that would, at times, dominate the space through the use of video, sound and lights.”
“I thought that was important to convey the extent to which the war subsumed the hotel and its residents,” he said.
As characters filter in and out of the front lobby of the hotel throughout the nerve-wracking night, certain sections of the dialogue shed light on the terrifying magnitude of their situation.
“I suppose if I’d been in England longer than a mere three months, I would be as blasé about raids,” Peter comments at one point, as the sounds of bombers fill the air. “Listen. Those ours?”
“Theirs,” Maudie says after a long pause. She has lived through so many bombings that she can tell the difference between Ger- man and British air raids.
Resilience amidst massive hardships stands out as a prominent theme in Flare Path.
“If there was anything that I would hope the audience members took away from the performance, it would be that they became more aware of the ability humans have to cope with day-to-day life stressors,” Matthew, who played Teddy, stated. “What the audience members choose to do with that awareness is really up to them.”
Despite the seriousness of the plot premise, the cast strived to strike a balance between heaviness and humor. And so, even as the entire storyline seemed to verge on tragedy, audience members found them-selves chuckling periodically throughout the night.
“A dramatic scene or moment is followed by a comic scene,” Romagnoli explained. “It was important for these antithetical moments to hit their targets. Comedy undermines the gravity, while the drama reminds us of the stakes. Ultimately, their world is an absurdity, one created to make their conditions tolerable.”
The opening scene is crucial in setting this particular tone for the play, as Peter humorously attempts to negotiate a room for the night with the snarky hotel manager, Mrs. Oakley, as played by Lana Meyer ’17. In other moments, the young waiter, Percy, portrayed by Maxwell Lieblich ’18, brings a much-needed burst of energy to the group through his feverish serving of drinks and light-hearted comments. Later in the evening, Doris’s alcohol consumption drives her to a state of drunken silliness (as depicted charmingly by Ashley Fink ’17), which provides a welcome reprieve from the tension emanating from the rest of the room.
Besides a few moments of particular emotional intensity, Flare Path is a play full of understatements. As Professor of English and the Liberal Arts John Bertolini stated in the Program Note, this is perhaps best exemplified by Maudie’s matter-of-fact comment, “There’s a war on, and things have got to be a bit different, and we’ve just got to get used to it – that’s all.”
To characterize a life turned upside-down by nightly air raids as “a bit different” is a testament to the mindset of the British public – and it is this tendency to understate that stood at the heart of last weekend’s performance.
“There existed several places in this play in which not just myself but perhaps the entire rest of the cast had to channel large and at times complicated human emotions, while not acting these emotions in a large way,” Matthew explained. “It wasn’t really a matter of suppression as it was a matter of understatement.”
Unfortunately, some of the nuanced expression behind these performances may have been lost on the audience due to the characters’ thickly-accented speech, rapid-fire delivery of dialogue and usage of time era-specific jargon. The faculty production of Flare Path deeply engaged the audience in many other regards, however – from its breathtaking aesthetics and sound design to its striking depiction of wartime terrors to the flurries of light and calm in between. Though it is not always an easy play to watch, in humanizing a small piece of history, it is so worth the telling.
(10/21/15 11:35pm)
Contrary to popular belief, vocal acrobatics, flawless dance contortions and state-of-the-art technology are not always necessary for an entertaining show. Sometimes, all it takes is one voice. Live storytelling is more than simply a tactic to lull young children to sleep or to pass time during long car rides; it is an art that helps to celebrate, validate and make sense of the many layers of human experience. Such was the purpose of the third annual Cocoon, a storytelling event organized by the Middlebury Moth-UP in collaboration with Director of the Mahaney Center for the Arts (MCA) Liza Sacheli on Saturday, Oct. 18. Featuring six members of the College and broader Vermont community, the night centered on the theme of “roots.” August Hutchinson ’16.5 and Celia Watson ’17, producers of the Middlebury Moth-UP, served as co-organizers and hosts of the event.
As per Moth-UP tradition, there were only three rules to the Cocoon: all stories had to be true, speakers could take no longer than ten minutes and they were not allowed to bring any notes onstage. The resulting performances were delightful in their honesty and polished in their delivery, spanning a wide spectrum of ages, backgrounds and experiences. The lineup consisted of Alexa Beyer ’15.5, Bianca Giaever ’12.5, a filmmaker featured on NPR’s This American Life and founder of The Middlebury Moth-UP; Associate Professor of History Rebecca Bennette, Burlington-based storyteller Deena Frankel, Jabari Matthew ’17 and Naomi Eisenberg ’18.
Collectively, the stories spanned a timeline from Sept. 11, 2001 to a childhood in the Bronx to this past summer. Settings ranged from the bottom of a canyon cliff in New Mexico to a youth village in Israel to a Picasso Erotique display in a Montreal art museum. Images of stolen pink bikes, falafel and embarrassing tube socks all managed to cross the audience members’ minds over the course of the two-hour show. Born from each individual’s interpretation of the theme “roots,” this sporadic hodgepodge of times, places and ideas made for a night of laughter, reflection and a few shocked silences.
Alexa Beyer kicked off the show by connecting a humorous incident of childhood naiveté to her current mantra as an environmentalist. She radiated with positivity, even when recounting her innocently unassuming response to the man who stole her bike and tried to sell it for $500, and then her subsequent struggle to keep a drive-in movie theatre alive in the wake of Walmart’s descent. Her hopeful spirit and ability to reflect compassionately on negative situations around her shined through particularly well in her closing lines.
“Our enemies aren’t these two-dimensional, evil villains,” Beyer said. “What is a big company if not a bunch of people who cry at the sad parts of movies? […] We keep trying to stab them with the law and wonder why they duck.” Ending her story with a thoughtful challenge, half directed toward the audience, half to herself, she stated, “Change their hearts as individuals by doing things that are inappropriately kind.”
Rebecca Bennette gave a similar, albeit less direct, call for more open hearts and minds. Following a chilling account of her experience in Germany as a half-Japanese woman mistaken – and subsequently discriminated against – for being Turkish, Bennette remarked, “My point is not that I can speak with authority on all forms of racism. Quite the opposite.” Delivered with calm precision, her speech struck the most serious tone of the night.
“People are discriminated against because their roots are from the ‘wrong’ places,” Bennette stated. “Yet they are brave enough to come anyway.”
Continuing the discussion of identity and belonging – concepts that can prove hazy for those who do not fit neatly into a certain category – Naomi Eisenberg offered reflection on her service trip to Israel in a performance that managed to be both humorous and harrowing. Using moments of laughter as transition points, she navigated the challenges, joys and absurdities of her summer with impressive clarity and eloquence.
“Imagine spooning vomit back into your mouth,” she described of a soup that caused the entire service group to “poop their brains out.” “Now add hummus.”
Switching expertly between points of comedy and gravity, Eisenberg’s parting words spoke poignantly to the sense of displacement that many of us undoubtedly feel about certain places in our lives.
“I thought I already knew Israel. But after I saw the country turned upside down, inside out, I realized how rootless I was,” she said. “This is not a place we’re entitled to. We have to make our own roots here.”
Meanwhile, in a critical examination of their own roots, Bianca Giaever and Jabari Matthew both offered stories of stark self-reflection, though set in drastically different contexts. Giaever’s tale began after her graduation from Middlebury; Matthew’s story dated back to his toddler and elementary school days. Giaever’s whimsical adventure – which landed her on a cross-country road trip to New Mexico, following a list of poetic clues in search of a millionaire’s hidden treasure whilst trying to get over a heartbreak – seemed almost too ridiculous to be true, whilst Matthew’s account of his early childhood dance lessons and falling out with his best friend Richard struck a nostalgic chord with the audience in its relatability.
Ultimately, both brought to light the importance of understanding – or at least trying to understand – how we arrived to where we are today and all the people and places along the way.
“I didn’t want to make my story seem as if it was a class lecture,” Matthew said. “I wanted to give off the truth, which was that although I experienced what I did in my story, I am still figuring things out. And perhaps there is a lesson to be learned in my story, but whether or not there was, that was certainly not the point.”
Giaever’s story echoed the same spirit of self-discovery. Her manner of speaking was endearingly open-hearted, as if she were reading straight from the pages of her own private journal. Meanwhile, Matthew’s voice boomed with conviction, his expert vocal portrayals of the other characters in his story often creating the surreal sense of a one-man show.
Perhaps the performance that elicited the widest range of emotion from the audience was Deena Frankel’s story on love, life and loss. Beginning with a blind date at an art display about sex and ending with a somber mountain hike on Sept. 11, 2001 with her soon-to-be husband, Frankel infused her piece with a delicate mixture of amusement, joy and sadness.
“[The art display] was all about sex, in every permutation and combination that you can think of, and some that I’m sure you cannot,” she said, drawing huge laughs from the crowd. “What do you say to a guy you just met about this? ‘Nice brush strokes?’”
Frankel’s sophisticated and confident delivery stood as a testament to her experience not only as a storyteller, but also as a member of the Vermont community with a myriad of wisdom to share.
“Love has its roots in shared comedy and tragedy,” she stated. “Our stories are the roots of love.”
In an era that has shifted largely toward film, media and television, the power of live oral storytelling is often underestimated, its relevance as an art medium questioned. But as the packed theater of the MCA proved on Saturday night, there is a strong demand for this performance platform. Events like the Cocoon remind us of the importance of human connections in the absence of screens and push us to find meaning in everyday interactions. The live energy and sense of shared experience that flourish during these events are rewarding to audience members and speakers alike.
“To be able to share your stories is one thing,” Eisenberg said. “But to know that there are people who showed up just to listen is, to me, really beautiful. As long as there are people who are willing to share their stories, there will be people who are willing to listen.”
(09/17/15 11:52pm)
Hard sciences might not be the first association most people make with Middlebury College. But the critical thinking and spirit of discovery that the liberal arts curriculum seeks to promote are well in line with the skills needed to operate in a real-world laboratory setting. This summer, many students put their in-classroom training to the test as they took on research positions both on- and off-campus. Covering a diverse range of topics, three students’ summers of sci- ence all culminated in positive affirmations about their academic paths — as well as contributed to an ever-growing field of study on human health.
Eliza Jaeger ’17 worked as a research assistant for Associate Professor of Biology Mark Spritzer. Her team included Leslie Panella ’15.5, Erin Miller ’16.5 and Lauren Honican ’15, who is working post-grad as a lab technician. Professor Spritzer’s research centers on neuroendocrinology, the pathways and effects of hormones in the brain. Over the course of ten weeks, Jaeger studied the effects of primary sex hormones (in this case, testosterone and estradiol) in rodent brains on the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. One project aimed to determine whether varying levels of testosterone in aged male rats causes them to be better at completing spatial memory tasks. The results of this pilot study showed that higher concentrations of testosterone tend to correlate with better spatial memory.
Why is this research relevant? Because the decreases that humans see in primary sex hormones (testosterone and estradiol) are possibly correlated with age-related cognitive decline. By studying the effects of replacing these hormones in aged rodents, this type of research could lead to valuable insights on the relationship between changes in neuroendocrinology and aging.
From castration surgeries to counting brain cells in sectioned tissue, dealing with rodents in the laboratory had no shortage of challenges.
“Working with animals is one of the greatest privileges I’ve had at Middlebury, and it does not come without re- sponsibility. Because we were working with live animals, someone always had to come in on weekends to check on the ani- mals, and make sure food was rationed correctly and injections were administered on time,” Jaeger said. “I would say I have enormous respect and gratitude for the animals that we use in our experiments, and that working with them was a great but challenging experience.”
With hopes of earning a graduate degree in evolutionary neuroscience, Jaeger felt that her intense laboratory experience this summer helped to reinforce her resolve in her academic career. She plans to continue her research in the fall and spring semesters with Professor Spritzer, as well as write a research thesis during her senior year.
Meanwhile this summer, just a few rooms over inside Bicentennial Hall, Muriel Lavallee ’18 served as a research assistant for Professor Catherine Combelles in the department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. She worked alongside five other Middlebury students, Thilan Tudor ’16, Katherine Kucharzyck ’16, Madsy Schneider ’16, Julie Erlich ’17.5, Jennie Mejaes ’16 and a recent alum and a post-doctorate who will take on Professor Combelles’ responsibilities while she is on sabbatical in France dur- ing the school year. Over the course of eight weeks, the team aimed to uncover the ways in which endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in plastics (such as BPA and BPS) impact fertility and reproduction. Whether we realize it or not, we are surrounded by harmful substances. Many plastics with ‘BPA-free’ labels actually contain some BPS, and we constantly absorb these chemicals through our skin or ingest them from the plastics we use to hold our food and drinks.
“Being able to focus on this research for eight weeks in the summer was a unique opportunity and I’ve been exposed to so much,” Lavalle said. “Professor Combelles is brilliant and she has put together a lab that is collaborative and exciting to be a part of.”
Lavallee worked on folliculogenesis, the process in which ovarian follicles develop and secrete a mature egg. Women are born with a limited reserve of ovarian follicles, and current fertility tests use ultrasound to detect a progressed type of follicle, called the antral follicle, which is used as an indicator of the total number of microscopic primordial follicles in the ovarian reserve. Lavallee investigated granulosa cells, which surround oocytes in antral follicles and secrete hormones essential for oocyte development. The project holds important implication for our understanding of human fertility and the life cycle, and she plans to continue her work into the school year.
As Jaeger and Lavallee experimented with follicles, chemicals and rodents galore on campus, Kenzie Yedlin ’18 was hard at work on her own scientific endeavors on the other side of the country. Stationed at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Yedlin participated in a Summer Undergraduate Research Fel- lowship (SURF) in the department of pharmacology and toxicology. The goal of her lab team was to find a more effective treatment for triple negative breast cancer. Also known as TNBC, the disease accounts for 12-24 percent of breast cancer. Because it affects breast cancer cells that lack the three common receptors that other breast cancers drugs target, TNBC is more difficult to treat.
Yedlin and her team hypothesized that pretreatment of triple negative breast cancer cells with natural products would increase the potency of doxorubicin — a prescription drug that treats many types of cancers — allowing for the administration of a lower and less toxic dosage. Their project examined 16 different natural products from Papua New Guinea, a small island that accounts for six percent of Earth’s biodiversity.
An aspiring neuroscience major, Yedlin found the transition from college courses to real-world lab work to be somewhat overwhelming at first.
“I knew how to pipette, I knew how to measure things,” she explained. “We used some of the same tools, but often in different ways. It’s a completely different environment because at school you’re doing very specific things following very specific procedures, whereas at the lab you have to create your own procedure. Even though I knew how to pipette, I didn’t know why we were pipetting, or how to do it in a certain progression. The hardest part was feeling comfortable.”
By the end of the eight-week program, however, Yedlin expressed appreciation for the nitty-gritty of the hands-on research process, as she had achieved a deep familiarity with the tools and people around her.
“The stereotypical view of a science lab or science in general is that it’s very cutting edge and that it’s kind of a tough world. And it is, but it was nice to find a niche where there were really down-to-earth people, where mistakes were allowed,” she said, recounting incidents in which she accidentally damaged lab equipment on her first and last days on the job.
Back at the College, Jaeger experienced a similar sense of connection with her peers and her work. Despite any initial frustration, the care and precision she devoted to her lab project ultimately yielded great rewards.
“During one of my first intense cell-counting days, I was becoming discouraged by the monotony of counting small dark cells in rat neural tissue, when I came across what was unmistakably a mature neuron, complete with defined soma and dendrites. I remember that it really hit me then that I was looking at real brain tissue under a microscope,” Jaeger recounted of one of her most revelatory moments. “I called one of my lab mates over to look at the neuron, and we both got really excited. I remember this nerdy moment fondly, because it reminds me that there are people out there who 100 percent share my enthusiasm for the brain and all its mysteries, and that I can study it for the rest of my life if I want to.”
“We’re doing something that matters,” Lavallee added. “I’m so thankful for this experience and excited to continue this work during the upcoming school year.”
(05/06/15 3:51pm)
The final weekend of “Gaypril,” a month devoted to creating more visibility for LGBTQ groups on campus, was celebrated by the timely premiere of Millennium Approaches, Part I of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. Written by Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play explores the struggles of gay men living in New York City during the 1980s, when intolerance, shameful denial or an impending sense of doom hovered over many people’s heads. The student-produced show ran in the Hepburn Zoo from April 31 to May 2, bringing to light questions of religion, race, gender and sexual orientation that once sparked ethical scandals and continue to bear relevance in the modern era.
The burdens of everyday life become magnified and exacerbated in this dramatic tale as three groups of people grapple with different but interlinking sets of problems. Mormon chief clerk Joe, played by Max Lieblich ’18, and his agoraphobic, emotionally unstable and sex-starved wife Harper, played by Katie Mayopoulos ’18, fight to establish a sense of trust, communication and constancy in their relationship as Joe contemplates accepting a job offer in Washington and Harper wrestles with her suspicion that Joe is gay. Successful lawyer and deeply closeted homosexual Roy, portrayed by Phil Brand ’18.5, refuses to come to terms with his recent AIDS diagnosis, proclaiming that “AIDS is what homosexuals have. I have liver cancer.” Meanwhile, clerical worker and gay Jewish man Louis, played by Lee Michael Garcia Jimenez ’18, is struck by the devastating news that his boyfriend, Prior, portrayed by Christian Lange ’17.5, has contracted AIDS. Throughout the play, these heavy plot points manifest themselves in intensely emotional confrontations behind closed doors, with Harper shouting impassionedly at Joe as he arrives home late, Louis and Prior discussing Prior’s prognosis whilst embracing intimately in bed and Roy confronting his medical fate within the confidential confines of his doctor’s office. Over the course of the play, the lives of these troubled characters slowly and unexpectedly begin to intersect.
Life in New York City moves at an unforgivingly breakneck speed, but amidst paperwork piles, hospital appointments and burnt dinners, the days drag on. The actors portray this existential slog with a careful mixture of exhaustion, misery, frustration and apathy, their words casting a heavy silence over the audience at some points and provoking laughter at others.
“The audience might find it strange the way the play switches between funny and deadly serious and back again very quickly,” Lange said. “It’s a weird play, and if you don’t walk into it with an open mind it has the potential to be very difficult to process.”
Within one dream sequence, Prior commiserates to his makeup-adorned face in the mirror, “I look like a corpse. A … corpsette! Oh my queen; you know you’ve hit rock-bottom when even drag is a drag.” As Prior’s condition declines, his chest marred by dark purple scars and his face increasingly pale and gaunt, Lange’s delivery of these candid moments hovered between humor and heartbreak, poetry and pain. With each broken scream and moment of bloody, writhing agony, a sense of empathy tore through the audience, bringing to light the utter torment of the times.
The AIDS crisis of the 1980s brought with it intolerance, ignorance and fear toward the gay movement, as the virus became stigmatized as “gay cancer” and “gay-related immune disorder.” Angels in America provides a cross-sampling of voices within this messy, confusing and tragic era. Roy is symbolic of all the closeted gays who refused to admit who they were for fear of being associated with the queer image, which was generally viewed as weak and insignificant. Joe, trapped in his church-sanctioned Mormon marriage, will never gain acceptance for an identity deemed wrong for religious reasons. Belize, Prior’s voodoo cream-using, magic-loving nurse and black drag queen, portrayed artfully by Rubby Paulino ’18, embodies a particular subculture of the gay image. Louis’s poor coping mechanisms in light of Prior’s tragedy are a call to those unable to face the harshness of reality – whereas Prior, in his quiet resilience, represents those who can.
In this sense, Angels in America serves as a window into the past, a stark reminder of all that society has seen and overcome.
“It connects us to a generation of gay people that lived through a part of gay history that I didn’t. I was raised with education around sex being that HIV and AIDs were an ‘everyone’ thing,” Garcia Jimenez said. “A lot of old people still see it as a ‘gay person’ thing. I didn’t grow up seeing my gay friends die of a disease that no one really understood.”
Sadly, Prior’s suffering is further compounded when the emotional strife of the situation causes Louis, his lover of four years, to abandon him. Similarly, the deterioration of Harper and Joe’s marriage pushes Harper to a state of panicked pill-popping and frequent hallucinations. Traveling on parallel paths toward destruction, the anguish within both relationships reaches a point of full, explosive expression in a joint break-up scene near the end of the play. At last, Louis confronts the limits of his own love, while Joe recognizes his homosexuality.
“Characterized by Harper’s short phrases, Louis’s apathy, Prior’s hurt and Joe’s overflowing realizations, this scene beats out a rhythm that is difficult for actors to keep up with, and splices together two stories in a challenging way for the audience,” Mayopoulos stated. “Nevertheless, watching two very different couples break apart at the same moment because of the same basic reasons – trying to save oneself and one’s identity – is emotionally overwhelming and extremely powerful.”
Ultimately, in leaving their respective relationships, Louis and Joe stumble into each other. In a moment of bittersweet clarity, their feelings culminate in an intimate, lingering kiss that left the audience in an awed sort of silence. Within this scene, Garcia Jimenez portrayed the multiple facets of Louis’s complicated, even paradoxical, personality – apathy, selfishness and above all, self-loathing – with delicate emotional precision.
“If you touch me, your hand might fall off or something,” Louis tells Joe in a sad, matter-of-fact tone. “Worse things have happened to people who have touched me.”
Some critics of the play argue that it delves far too much into a story rather than a political thesis about the approaching millennium and its implications on the gay movement. But perhaps it works better as art rather than as a political campaign speech. Angels in America is more than merely a tragic tale: beyond the harsh realism of the play lies a distinct sense of mysticism, which eventually gives way to hope. A mysterious, almost harassing voice beckons periodically to the ailing Prior, telling him to “look up” and “prepare the way.” The stunningly illuminated angel that embodies these haunting messages in the final scene, as portrayed by Nadine Nasr ’17.5, is a sign from the universe that society is on the brink of change. “Greetings, Prophet,” she announces. “The Great Work begins. The Messenger has arrived.”
“The mysticism makes it an undeniable, divine fact of fate. There’s a certain point in society where something is obviously going to happen, so we need to let it happen,” Garcia Jimenez explained. Pointing to modern times, he said, “It’s not about whether gay marriage is going to be passed; it’s about which state is going to be the last to pass it.”
This weekend’s performance of Angels in America, a work deemed by the New York Times as “the most influential American play of the last two decades,” was a momentous labor of love for the 12-member team. There were no stage hands, leaving the full responsibility of physical labor and onstage logistics to the cast and crew. Additionally, within the entirely student-run production, some actors multitasked as producer, director and assistant director. Mayopoulos, who acted brilliantly as Harper, was inspired to produce the play after performing a scene alongside Lieblich for her Acting I final.
“I went to a socially conservative high school in Charlotte, North Carolina, where doing a piece of theatre as daring, liberal and free as Angels in America would never have happened – there would literally be protests,” Mayopoulos said. “For me, this play exemplifies the tragedies that occur when a society is not accepting and the extent of the strain it puts on all members of that community, which I witnessed firsthand in my hometown.”
A tale of many faces, Angels in America touches on everything from drag queens to disillusioned wives, from fatality to potential pregnancies and from divine forces to awkward sex between strangers in the park. Through tears, laughter and moments of poignant discomfort, the actors within this production carved to life a story of momentous proportions, evoking an era marred by hatred and neglect. Handled with care, the characters’ devastating narratives became a reflection of a powerful, collective hope that perhaps the world is not coming to an end after all. As millennium approaches, a better future is surely underway.
(04/29/15 9:28pm)
The second faculty show of the semester, Spring Awakening, will usher in a 19th-century tale of sexuality that proved to be far ahead of its times. Written by German dramatist Frank Wedekind in 1891, the play offers a harrowing perspective of suicide, rape, child abuse, abortion and other difficult themes, which frequently led to the banning or censorship of the play during the author’s lifetime and beyond. (Indeed, the first uncensored production in English took place in 1974.) This weekend’s rendition will grapple directly with these complex issues, under the direction of Associate Professor of Theatre Claudio Medeiros ’90. The content is for mature audiences only.
Spring Awakening follows a group of adolescents in a small town in late-19th-century Germany. Within their sexually repressive culture, they experience an awakening into sexuality. But in a world where people still believe that storks bring babies, this pubescent transformation holds scandalous implications. As such, Medeiros described the premise of the play as “living the tension between those emotions and desires and the ideology of the time.”
To understand the context for their performances, cast members conducted research specific to their roles and spoke with Professor of German Bettina Matthias. With 21 student actors, one faculty actor and a five-student production team, the making of this show has proven to be no small feat. In contrast to the small cast of his last faculty show, Medeiros chose Spring Awakening for its wide breadth of roles.
“Directors have lists of plays in their heads that they would like to do in the future,” he stated. “Each time you direct, you have to take into consideration the students who are available and the roles that you can offer for those students.”
While casting last semester, Medeiros was extremely upfront regarding the sensitive and potentially triggering content of the play. During the reading process, he chose particularly difficult scenes for students to run through so he could read their level of comfort as they confronted the full extent of the show’s material.
Later on in the production process, following the devastating loss of one of the College’s students, Medeiros felt it was necessary to discuss the mature subject matter of Spring Awakening with the administration, and to question whether or not to proceed with the production.
“In light of recent events, some on campus were concerned about what impact the play might have on the community and, in particular, on vulnerable members of the community who might be struggling with their own reaction to recent events,” Andrea Lloyd, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty, explained.
“You start questioning what you are doing,” Medeiros stated. “But we always felt that the demonstration was taking great care to look at the issue and think about it very, very carefully.”
The cast and crew discussed the issue heavily. A small group of faculty, including Medeiros, engaged in an open dialogue with the senior administration about the complexities of the show. Ultimately, it was decided that the play should go on, with a clear warning to all audiences about the mature content.
“I hope that members of the community make informed choices about whether attending is the right thing for them,” Lloyd said. “And I applaud the cast members for the work they have done grappling with very difficult subject matter.”
Indeed, the controversial nature of Spring Awakening ought not to overshadow the meticulously passionate work of the cast and crew in bringing this piece to life. Medeiros chose British playwright Edward Bond’s translation of Spring Awakening, as he preferred the economy of the text over the overwritten quality of other versions. Last semester, students in his first-year seminar, Power and Sexuality Onstage, proved integral in helping him unravel certain scenes of the play. Meanwhile, in rehearsals, the cast has demonstrated an unprecedented chemistry in piecing together this thought-provoking work.
“This company has been a total joy to work with. Usually you try to do a lot of ensemble-building. But they created an ensemble practically on their own,” Medeiros said. “The only thing I did was create an environment that was playful and comfortable. I was really fortunate.”
In particular, he lauded the initiative of Adam Milano ’15 and Chelsea Melone ’15, who play the challenging roles of Melchior and Wendla, respectively.
“I would come in and shape the material,” Medeiros said. “But the first draft they would come up with on their own.”
Of course, crafting this difficult piece has not come without its challenges. Students initially struggled to grasp the sense of sexual ignorance that embodied the era. Additionally, the poetic nature of the text has posed both theoretical and technical demands for the cast. The challenge lies in making the meaning of the dialogue understood and articulating the words so that they are clearly heard, since the spacious Wright Theater creates a tricky situation for acoustics.
“The moment an audience member moves forward to listen better, some of the effects are already drained,” Medeiros explained. In terms of the nature of the text, he stated, “It’s more expressionist than realist. Instead of representing life as it would happen outside the theater, the playwright is trying to represent the essence of experiences, not all the contours in detail. So the language is somewhat poetic, elevated. It’s not people sitting at a table having coffee and chatting. There’s a clear sense that this is poetry, or art.”
The task of the actor, then, is to ensure that the dialogue is understood not only for its surface meaning, but also for what is underneath it.
Structured as a poem, the play is composed of scenes that juxtapose each other but are unlinked by cause and effect. The visual concept is minimalist, with an abstract material space that clearly suggests a real place. Lighting shines down upon the same set to evoke scenes within a house, a forest or any number of different settings. As Medeiros put it, the space is “more of a surface that suggests something, but that resonates differently in different scenes.” Throughout the show, the visual focus falls mostly on bodies in space, lights and costumes.
In contrast to previous renditions of Spring Awakening, Medeiros chose to incorporate a dancer in this show. Through fluidly choreographed movements, Artist-in-Residence in Dance Scotty Hardwig will portray a mysterious figure known as the masked man, opening up a physical language onstage.
In breaking open difficult ideas and transcending modern times to an era of oppression and scandal, the cast and crew of this production have worked diligently to do justice to the original text.
“For us, it has been pleasurable work,” Medeiros said. “It is an artful play.”
The long-anticipated Spring Awakening debuts tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Wright Memorial Theater. Two subsequent showings on May 1-2 will also take place at 7:30 p.m. Running time is approximately two-and-a-half hours with intermission. Tickets are available through go/boxoffice.
(04/22/15 1:33pm)
Mental illness is a difficult and messy ordeal. Addressing it can be heartbreaking, controversial and immensely uncomfortable. Next to Normal dared to tackle the complicated issue this past weekend, April 16-18, in a rock-musical that touched on everything from bipolar disorder to electroconvulsive therapy to drug abuse. Directed by David Fine ’17, the show demonstrated that where normal human dialogue falters, music begins.
The story revolves around a family with fragile foundations: Diana, the mother, played by Lisa Wooldridge ’16, struggles with bipolar disorder. Concerned husband Dan, portrayed by Tim Hansen ’18, attempts to help her whilst suppressing his own grief and maintaining that everything is perfectly fine. Teenage daughter Natalie, played by Paige Guarino ’18.5, feels overwhelmed by schoolwork and neglected at home by two parents who, amidst the onslaught of medications and counseling appointments, seem to have far larger concerns than raising her. And lastly, there is 18-year-old son Gabe, portrayed by Josh Goldenberg ’18. He is mildly apathetic, snarky … and not actually alive.
Though initially depicted as a regular teenage boy, Gabe is merely a hallucination that haunts Diana’s mind, an eerie memory of the deceased infant that died sixteen years earlier. Wherever Diana goes, he appears, simultaneously her greatest comfort and most dangerous avenue to denial and disconnect. In their portrayal of this unconventional mother-son relationship, Wooldridge and Goldenberg crafted interactions onstage that brimmed with an odd mixture of delusion, dependency and love.
As a manifestation of Diana’s unhealthy imagination, Gabe becomes the trigger behind his mother’s most extreme moments of instability, the contrived justification behind her impulsive acts of self-destruction. At the end of a particularly emotionally-draining day, it is “Gabe” who convinces Diana to flush her pills down the toilet by telling her, “I think it’s a great idea. I think you’re brave.”
Despite his role as the ghost of a grieving mother’s memory, Goldenberg’s presence was anything but subdued. Dancing, singing and shouting his way across the stage, he performed with an energy and effervescence that enraptured the audience, even as every character except Diana ignores his existence.
Psychopharmaceutic buzzwords echo throughout the musical, particularly in the number “Who’s Crazy/My Psychopharmacologist and I,” a passionately delivered mash-up between Dan and Diana that details patient-doctor dynamics, coping methods and the implications of medication. Haunting at some points and humorous at others, the song passes between the stirring perspectives of husband and wife: “Who’s crazy? The one who can’t cope? Or maybe the one who’ll still hope,” Dan sings sorrowfully. Later, he voices the same heartbreaking sentiment: “Who’s crazy? The one who’s uncured? Or maybe the one who’s endured.” His melodic ponderings are powerful in their brevity.
“Music can often act as a shorthand for emotion,” Hansen explained. “It is integral to conveying the emotional message.”
Meanwhile, Diana’s lyric prompted surprised laughs from the crowd: “My psychopharmacologist and I/Call it a lovers’ game/He knows my deepest secrets/I know his… name!” The number perfectly encapsulates Diana’s emotional vulnerability, as well as the strain of her illness on Dan’s sanity. As she rattles off an alphabet soup’s worth of medications – Zoloft, Xanax, Ambien, Prozac and more – alongside the falsely gleeful claim that “these are a few of my favorite pills,” the extent of her mental illness history becomes glaringly clear. Such is the context for the cascade of psychological trials to come.
As Diana’s condition spirals ever out of control, Natalie meets a boy: Henry, played by Steven Medina ’17, who has always admired her from afar. Their friendship soon blossoms into a romance. Natalie puts up a tough exterior at first, unwilling to let Henry witness her vulnerability. Slowly, however, she opens up her world to him. Sweet and thoughtful Henry becomes her safe space. When home becomes too unbearable for her, she turns to him. In a way, their connection may resemble a trite, escapist high-school relationship – but in many other senses, it is not. The scope of Natalie’s problems is absolutely jarring, and Henry helps her make sense of it all with an emotional maturity unparalleled by most other guys his age. Genuine and pure-hearted, he is effortlessly likeable.
Meanwhile, Guarino encapsulated Natalie’s personality with carefully calculated complexity. The character is defiant yet fragile, constantly lashing out but all the while hurting inside. It is a brashness stemming from internal pain that most people can relate to.
“If you want to put her in a box, then she is the angsty teenager. But she really isn’t that at all, because it’s so validated by everything she’s been through,” Guarino explained. “She’s been rejected and neglected her entire existence. Her parents don’t acknowledge her at all. She keeps trying to compensate for that by being good at everything, and that eats away at her slowly.”
The musical is littered with profanities, and justifiably so. Through relapses, rock bottoms and recoveries, life can be unbearably hard. Sometimes, it can even descend into “bullshit,” as Natalie puts it. Doctors deliver awful news, adults make questionable decisions and children crack under pressure. In the wake of Diana’s mental deterioration, Wooldridge convincingly embodied her despair and desperation – but there is more to her story than her suffering.
“She’s not always in the pits of despair. She has moments of humor and moments of levity. In a way, it makes the moments when she is depressed more impactful,” Hansen observed.
The entire show comes tinged with moments of dry humor, from jokes centering on the couple’s lackluster love life to deadpan looks from Diana’s psychiatrist Doctor Fine, played by Ben Oh ’17. And amidst the sad truths – the fallibility of medicine, the pain of letting go and the sheer chronicity of certain human conditions – positive realizations lie in wait. As the cast sings in the closing number, “Light,” “you don’t have to be happy at all to be happy you’re alive.”
Next to Normal is the story of one fictional family – but the point is that it could be any family. Diana could be anyone. Her devastating struggles, and the effects that they have on her loved ones, put the scope of mental illness in harrowing perspective.
“Especially in light of the recent tragedy that caught the Middlebury student body by such surprise, it is crucial that we take a step back to think about those struggling with such issues. Many people, our closest friends and family included, fight these battles alone and in silence,” Fine wrote in his Director’s Note.
Proceeds from the show went toward a scholarship fund at The Hotchkiss School in Nathan Alexander’s name. With countless individuals bearing invisible burdens each and every day, it is crucial that dialogue surrounding mental health be ever open and inclusive.
“There’s no right treatment. There’s no one narrative,” Hansen stated. “Medication, therapy or ECT doesn’t work for everybody. It’s an individual process with coming to terms with the underlying causes and how they manifest themselves in your life.”
“The point isn’t that there is an end of the road. The point is that the road can go off in many different directions and at the end of the day, we all need to care for ourselves,” Guarino added.
The characters of Next to Normal spend all their lives striving toward a seemingly unremarkable goal: normalcy – or as close to it as they can get. They do not ask for much, yet the road toward this modest objective is riddled with obstacles. So what can we afford to learn from their bittersweet story? Life is hard. Pain is inevitable. These are not new ideas, of course. But this rock-musical extends past existential wallowing to emphasize the value – and innateness – of human empathy. People care, and help is available. By channeling the comforting truths that all too often fall through the cracks of our consciousness, Next to Normal is a reminder of all there is to live for in this world. It is a heavy tale, but it is also an immensely important one, showing us that it may not be okay right now – but someday, somehow, it will be.
(04/15/15 6:12pm)
It takes a certain kind of vulnerability to create powerful theatre. From April 9-11, the stars of the student-produced version of David Ives’ 2010 play Venus in Fur put their acting skills on fearless, intimate display in a 90-minute showing at the Hepburn Zoo. Featuring actors Caitlin Duffy ’15.5 and August Rosenthal ’17 under the direction of Joelle Mendoza-Echthart ’15, Venus in Fur was Duffy’s senior thesis work and a featured performance of the Spring Student Symposium.
There may have been only two actors, but the presence of a play within the play made for twice the number of characters to keep track of. The story takes place in a director’s office in modern-day New York City, as exasperated playwright-director Thomas Novachek, played by Rosenthal, struggles to cast the part of Vanda von Dunayev, the female lead in his adaptation of the 1870 German novel Venus in Furs. Just as he is about to call it quits for the day, the stunning Vanda Jordan, played by Duffy, saunters in, late and unannounced. Following a string of profanities dramatically lamenting her tardiness, the bold, brash and conveniently-named actress announces excitedly, “I’m, like, made for this part, I swear to God.”
Vanda proceeds to strip off her top layer of clothes, revealing a seductive black leather corset, black underwear and a dog collar around her neck. Her energy is palpable. Thomas, exhausted from an entire day’s worth of fruitless auditions, impatiently tells her to not bother auditioning right now. Desperate for the role, however, Vanda dances around his instructions, first by wallowing loudly in self-pity and then by slipping into her costume – a long, fancy white dress – whilst he is distracted on the phone. And so Thomas finds himself entangled in the longest, strangest and most emotionally-draining audition of his life, with modern-day actress Vanda voicing the role of nineteenth-century, Austro-Hungarian Vanda von Dunayev as he reluctantly reads the lines of her lover, Severin von Krushemski.
Duffy’s acting is sharp, lively and above all, utterly daring. Her colorful and unrestrained depiction of Vanda is a constant source of disbelieving amusement. From her ridiculous pre-audition warm up (shouting “KA-KA! KA-KA! INK. SPOT. INK! SPOT!” under Thomas’s impatient glare) to her shameless inquiries, like, “And what’s this? A maypole? Phallic symbol?” in reference to an iron pipe, the audience spends the better part of the beginning of the show giggling at Vanda’s antics.
In line with Vanda’s brash personality, Duffy is unabashedly loud and expressive onstage. Her words reverberate loudly through the room, while her abrupt, sweeping movements, coupled with the clacking of her high heels, produce an endless stream of bangs, thuds and crashes. All the while, thunder rumbles in the background, foreshadowing the mysterious and faintly menacing nature of the coming scenes.
Vanda’s interpretation of the play clashes heavily with Thomas’ vision. She labels it as S&M porn, while he considers it a beautiful love story. Written by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the real-life book Venus in Furs revolves around themes of female dominance and sadomasochism, with Krushemski begging Dunayev to inflict sexually degrading acts on him. Indeed, the term ‘masochism’ actually originated from the author’s last name.
What soon transpires is a blurring of reality and fiction, as actress and director immerse themselves deep within their respective roles. Though Vanda occasionally interrupts the heat of the dialogue with questions like, “And that’s symbolic, right?” the distinction between the people and their temporary characters becomes increasingly hazy as they progress through the script. Vanda demonstrates a surprisingly detailed knowledge of the play, eventually feeling inclined to instruct Thomas in certain scenes.
Yet the contention between the two continues. Vanda insists that the story is pornographic, sexist and degrading toward women, and pauses at several points to protest some particularly inflammatory lines. In response, Thomas rants, “How can you be so good at playing her, and be so fucking stupid about her?” When she tries to point fingers, he tells her, “There are no villains in this piece.” Furthermore, when Vanda tries to connect Krushemski’s thirst for degradation with an abusive childhood, he explodes, “Let’s not be trite, all right? This is not anthropology, or sociology. This is a play. Don’t generalize. There’s a lot more going on here than corporal punishment issues.”
Venus in Fur unravels at rapid speed, and the development of Vanda and Thomas’s actor-director relationship moves parallel to Dunayev and Krushemski’s steamy affair. The sexual tension mounts, the degradation escalates and the audition stretches on far longer than anticipated. Each word uttered onstage is strategic and significant.
“Everything is interwoven. So if they make a reference to some element of Greek mythology, it relates in some way to what’s going on in the room,” director Mendoza-Echthart said.
References to the goddess Venus throughout the script seem to suggest that Vanda is no mortal creature. Her eyes take on an increasingly fierce and crazed look, prompting what appears to be genuine fear within Thomas in the final scene. And so, as the end of the play takes a sudden, jarring, mythological turn – complete with ominous, otherworldly music, crashing thunder and flashing red lights – fundamental questions remain: Is Vanda the goddess of Venus in human form, or an actress pretending to be a goddess? At what point does she decide to punish Thomas, or does she plan it all along? And why does Thomas let her stay for so long?
Venus in Fur may be a two-person play with a minimal and unchanging set, but the evolving dynamics are astonishingly complex. Duffy was keenly aware of the dissonance between her views and Vanda’s.
“Because I was playing Vanda, I had to believe that she was right most, if not all of the time. But objectively, I agree with Thomas that this play isn’t as simple as good guy/bad guy,” Duffy said. “Vanda is very set in her beliefs, though I think there are some moments that catch her off guard and make her question some of her principles, even briefly.”
The overbearing ways of Vanda – both Jordan and von Dunayev – ensure that Duffy frequently commands the attention of the entire room. Thomas, though significantly less dramatic than the wildly reactionary and sexual actress before him, does not let his voice go unheard. Through his lengthy monologues, in which he becomes progressively invested in the role of Krushemski, his utterly serious demeanor casts a powerful weight on the ambience of the room.
However, Rosenthal recognized the importance of sometimes subduing his role in order to create a bigger space for Vanda. In the beginning scenes, when Vanda’s theatrical introduction is the focal point of the story, Thomas is intentionally boring and passive. As the audition progresses, however, his character takes on a more prominent role.
“It’s important to share the playing, move that experience back and forth,” Rosenthal said.
Mendoza-Echthart kept this balancing act in mind while casting for the part.
“The play calls for a very specific sort of disposition in the male. He has to have a certain confidence, embody the role with a little bit of arrogance and be able to go head to head with Vanda,” she stated. “The great thing about August is that he has a fight in him. If we had wanted a doormat, we wouldn’t have cast August.”
Meanwhile, Duffy’s part as Vanda allowed her to better understand her acting.
“I usually get cast as the bitch, the whore, and… well, the bitch and the whore, basically,” she said.
Initially, she had thought that accepting the role of Vanda, who is arguably a bitch and a whore, would involve undesirable type-casting. However, she soon realized that the character embodied much more than mere brashness or promiscuity.
“I got to make a bunch of wrong choices in searching for the right choice,” she said. “I made a decision pretty early on in our process about who I think Vanda is, where she comes from and why she has showed up at Thomas’s auditions. I had to make that choice because it informed every choice I made throughout the play.”
Though Duffy may have established a clear narrative for Vanda in her mind, the actual text of the play teems with uncertainty, neglecting to shed any definitive light on Vanda’s identity or motives. It is meant to be ambiguous, or, as Vanda mistakenly utters on several occasions, “ambivalent.” What the show does accomplish, however, is a rigorous thought experiment. Venus in Fur is more than the dysfunctional story of an actress who seduces and tortures a director. It probes each participant – onstage and offstage – to examine their own lives more closely.
“It made us all think about dynamics in a relationship – who holds the power, what that means, if that’s something that we’ve constructed, or if it’s intrinsically part of every relationship,” Mendoza-Echthart said. “We never openly answered the question. I personally don’t have a clear answer.”
Early on in the audition, Thomas tells Vanda that he loves the size of his characters’ emotions. This statement holds true for the entire scope of the student production. Neither actor is afraid of full, liberated expression. Even as their true selves and adopted characters become largely indiscernible from one another, the extremes of their experiences are never muted. Fury, passion, jealousy, confusion and myriad other emotions shape this utterly unforgettable story. Though small in operation, with a cast and crew of only 10 students, this showing of Venus in Fur touches on all the big, essential questions. And luckily, it knows better than to try to answer them.
(04/08/15 3:49pm)
What happens when fur coats, dangerously high heels and babushka headscarves clash with the otherworldly elements of ancient fairytales? This past weekend, the Seeler Studio Theatre of the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts was transformed into a fantastical fusion between modern Russian reality and folklore. In the highly-anticipated faculty show The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls, which ran from April 2-4, audiences were ushered into a world of evil witches, flying potatoes and hungry bears that magically, horrifyingly coincide with the lives of three girls navigating their way through post-Soviet Moscow.
A finalist for the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn playwriting prize of 2012, the play was directed by Assistant Professor of Theatre Alex Draper ’88 and featured an all-female cast of seven students.
The play begins with a candidly bizarre monologue by 19-year-old Russian Masha, played by Lana Meyer ’17. Donning seductive, knee-high red boots with killer heels, Masha offers a tantalizing glimpse into her fantasy-ridden life in Moscow.
“Zhili byli,” she announces dramatically in her opening line, “in Russian means: they lived, they were. Once upon a time.”
This beautifully compact phrase – zhili byli – will echo throughout the rest of the play as the characters encounter various mystical obstacles in the most unexpected of places.
“I was, of course, always dreaming about running away into the forest,” Masha recounts in the story of how she ended up living with a bear. “’Cause that’s where everything good – meaning everything bad – happened.”
Masha’s monologue, delivered in a simultaneously riveting and offhand manner by Meyer, sets the casually outlandish tone that defines much of the play. And so the story – an intersection between peculiar fantasy and starkly honest narrative – is launched.
Set in 2005, The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls depicts life in Russia after the breakdown of the strict communist regime. As eager investors flocked to the country in the ’90s, the market went insane. The year 2005 saw the cusp of the economic decline that inevitably followed the huge boom, when there still existed a sort of wonder surrounding the idea of quick riches in Russia. Stories circulated in which dirty vegetable sellers became supermodels overnight. People were enamored by the possibility of jumping from a difficult life into what was essentially a fairytale. Such is the premise of all the fantastical happenings of the play.
19-year-old Annie, the protagonist of the play, grew up in America under the care of her Russian immigrant mother, Olga, played by Kathleen Gudas ’16.5. Portrayed by Katie Weatherseed ’16.5, Annie is wide-eyed, innocent and lovable, voicing aloud all the important, disbelieving questions that allow the audience to keep up with the fast-paced – and at times convoluted – plotline.
Meanwhile, the heavily spray-tanned, tracksuit-clad Olga, whose Russian accent holds strong even after twenty years in the states, expresses disillusion toward her rote and monotonous lifestyle as a hairdresser. Like so many others, she is enchanted by the prospect of rebuilding one’s life in the booming economic hub of Russia, in the magical sense of a modern-day fairytale. And so, because she cannot leave herself, she sends Annie off to her Auntie Yaroslava’s house for the summer, with the hopes that her daughter will reap the fairytale rewards that Olga could have had if she had stayed.
In this way, The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls challenges – and perhaps outright rejects – the validity of the traditionally revered American dream. No longer is the story centered on finding prosperity within the United States. Instead, it focuses on returning to the motherland in the aftermath of its revolutionary transformation.
Not everything on the other side of the ocean is rainbows and ponies, however.
“Sleep wis one eye open, baby,” are Olga’s parting words to Annie, as she pins an evil eye on her thick fur coat to ward off dangers that everyone reads about in skazki, old Russian fairytales. Her next comment drew huge laughs from the crowd: “It was dark ages when I receive zis. Literally. In Soviet Union, KGB turns on sun only one hour each day. Zey had switch.”
With these words haunting her mind, Annie sets off to meet her Auntie Yaroslava, played by Gabrielle Owens ’17. Little does Annie know, this kindly old woman is actually the evil witch Baba Yaga in disguise. Wrapped in tattered rags and usually shriveled over in her giant armchair, Baba Yaga is cursed to age one year whenever she is asked a question. As such, she winces painfully nearly every time the curious Annie speaks.
Owens enjoyed the unique challenges that her role presented, as she worked to “find the age of the character without losing any of the physicality or the emotions.”
“It’s sort of like playing the evil stepmother from Cinderella. It’s a very iconic character in Russian folklore who has many different incarnations,” she said. “The fun and challenging part was finding switches between when she is the evil witch and when she is masquerading, or is genuinely, a kind old lady. There are some moments when she really does care for this child. She also wants to eat her, of course, but there is a real person underneath.”
Outside of Auntie Yaroslava’s increasingly creepy apartment, the intersection of fantasy and real world continues, further bending the realm of possibility. Annie befriends three Russian girls with fascinating, albeit slightly concerning, tales of their own: Masha, who complains often of Misha, her (literal) bear of a boyfriend; Katya, the mistress of “the tsar,” as performed coyly by Leah Sarbib ’15.5; and other Katya, the tsar’s beautiful daughter, played by Caitlyn Meagher ’17. She also crosses paths with Nastya, the aloof prostitute, also played by Meagher.
Annie’s bright-eyed naiveté is shattered to some degree as she hesitantly, and comically, smokes her first cigarette, glimpses into a world of whoring and cheating and, in the culminating scenes of the play, grapples with such dangerous weapons as a pestle, ax and giant brick oven. Through it all, Weatherseed does not lose touch of the syrupy-sweetness that drew the audience to her from the beginning. Annie’s optimism may have dimmed, but Weatherseed shines on nevertheless.
Ultimately, it is the dynamism of the cast that makes this production of The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls such a riveting one.
“It needs big, bold, visceral, engaged acting,” Draper said.
While some details of the storyline may be lost in the rapid, overwhelming flurry of dialogue, perhaps the play’s greatest strength lies in its humor, which stems from the contrast between the sheer outlandishness of the fantasy and the characters’ reaction to it. For instance, there is no denying that the presence of a bear in place of a human boyfriend is ridiculous. The script capitalizes on that, with Masha making such nonchalant references to “Misha the bear” – Russia’s take on the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood – that Annie initially assumes she is speaking metaphorically.
Brilliantly executed scene transitions brought the audience from one reality to another, traveling from Auntie Yaroslava’s living room to pulsing nightclubs to the streets of Moscow. Through masterful lighting by Resident Scenic and Lighting Designer Hallie Zieselman and the fluid rearrangement of a pair of intricately painted red doors, the stage was transformed time and time again.
According to Draper, the set needed to be “fluid enough to change very quickly and yet contain elements that let the modern, traditional and much older than traditional live in the same kind of space.”
In the bloody mess of relationships that culminates by the end of the play, the mantra is uttered, “This shit happens.” Yet the characters stand strong in the aftermath; some might even describe them as unfazed.
“Nothing was left behind. Just a brick oven full of ashes and the world’s largest vegetarian stew gone cold,” Katya proclaims in the final lines. “There was no sign that Anya Rabinovich had ever stepped foot in apartment 57.”
The haunting end of The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls can be encapsulated by a variety of emotions: disillusion, shock, horror, confusion and even amusement. In the post-show discussion on Friday night, some speculated that the Annie’s abrupt departure following the gruesomely violent conclusion could be considered a “Russian happy ending.” After all, no longer will she be implicated in the fantastical dangers lurking around Auntie Yaroslava’s potato piles. Finally, she can feel safe.
The (debatably) dark ending aside, there lies a beauty in the underlying message of the play: that we have the power to shape our own destiny.
“Women who are living in a very sexist society are taking action and carving out their own skazki, making their own stories,” Owens said.
“Recognize when you start being the star of your own story,” Draper added.
The messages behind The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls may sound trite, but its bizarrely outlandish delivery is certainly difficult to forget. People have the tendency to make sense of their lives and justify, excuse and empower themselves with fairytales. This play, in its strange blend of mysticism and realism, is no exception.
(03/18/15 1:51pm)
Over the past couple weeks, the brutal conditions of the slowly receding winter have caused leaks to occur at the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts (MCA), which has played an integral role on campus since its construction in 1992. The affected area is located above the Middlebury College Museum of Art, where ice has pierced holes in the roof, allowing melted snow to leak into the building. Additionally, snow has blown into the ventilation ducts and melted, further contributing to the structural issues.
The timing of the leaks is not entirely unexpected. Generally, most roof leaks occur as springtime approaches, when rising temperatures cause heavy snow loads on top of buildings to melt. Meanwhile, the prolonged period of icy cold weather in January and February was accompanied by very few leaks.
The Facilities Services staff works strategically to combat the uniquely difficult conditions that Vermont winters present.
“Much of our attention focused on snow removal and thawing frozen drain lines. To the extent possible, we proactively remove snow from roofs that are more problematic,” Luther Tenny, Assistant Director of Maintenance & Operations at Facilities Services Office, said. “Let’s just say we’re all happy to be done with February.”
The inconvenient nature of the leakage, which has not gone unnoticed by students and faculty who frequent the MCA, is further exacerbated by the lingering winter conditions.
“Trying to find a pinhole leak under four feet of drifted snow and ice can be a frustrating task,” Tenny said.
Unfortunately, the complicated roof system of the MCA – composed largely of a protruding wigwam pattern, a patchwork style and sloping angles – is prone to trap large amounts of snow. This is similar to Le Chateau, which also faces obstacles due to the complexity of its roof design. Both buildings tend to pose more problems for the facilities staff than other structures on campus.
Structural problems vary according to the architecture of each building. Flat roofs with drains can freeze up and cause water to back up, namely at Freeman International Center and McCardell Bicentennial Hall. Additionally, ice dams are apt to form atop roofs with poor insulation, creating further leaks.
Due to the harsh, frigid conditions of each winter, facilities services have enacted numerous repairs and upgrades to the College’s roofing systems over the years – though admittedly, some problems are simpler to correct than others.
MCA is not the only building that has been internally affected by structural issues. The roof of Coffrin Annex, which connects the Annex to the main part of the Coffrin dorms, also experienced leakage at the onset of spring, as pipes on the roof failed to drain melting snow. As soon as facilities removed the snow, however, the problem disappeared.
While prolonged leakage issues may manifest themselves at times, as in the recent case at MCA, the facilities staff works to maintain a high level of efficiency toward the unpredictable brutality of Vermont weather, and its inconvenient aftermaths. As spring creeps ever closer and the College continues to modernize its building structures, such minor issues as the MCA leakage are likely to arise less frequently.
(03/04/15 4:43pm)
The Middlebury College Orchestra has experienced its fair share of ups and downs since its inauguration one hundred years ago. Most recently, low student participation led to the cancellation of orchestra in the spring of 2014. This past fall, however, conductor Andrew Massey rebuilt the group, filling many of its seats with dedicated first-year students. With the new spring semester in full swing, the orchestra has undergone a revival of sorts, with an increased focus on bonding between members and plans to expand the ensemble’s influence across campus.
These initiatives to reshape the College Orchestra were spearheaded in large part by cellist Nimrod Sadeh ’17.5, who first proposed the idea of creating an official, student-led Orchestra Board near the end of J-term. The idea was met with much enthusiasm from both Massey and the players. Since then, weekly meetings between head of the Board Sadeh, treasurer Gioia Pappalardo ’16.5, social chairs Jigar Bhakta ’18, Eliane Helitzer ’18 and Erin Work ’18 and media and advertising chair Toni Cross ’18 have been devoted to revamping the orchestra’s mission, image and internal structure.
“The purpose of this is for the orchestra to be a cohesive social group rather than just a group of strangers that meets to rehearse twice a week,” Sadeh explained. “We’re trying to model ourselves on athletic teams or a capella groups.”
The Orchestra Board is currently drafting an official constitution in order to gain the recognition of the SGA. Its members, who jokingly dub themselves “the musical chairs,” have several ideas in store to enhance intersection relations, increase campus awareness of concerts and improve the performance level of the ensemble. With Massey’s support, the Board hopes to set up an early-arrival orientation for members in the fall in order to foster more group bonding and get a head start on rehearsing major pieces for the first concert. Helitzer and Work are planning to organize more social events outside of rehearsal, as well as field trips to orchestra concerts in Boston, Burlington or New York City. Additionally, Cross is overseeing both the Middlebury College Orchestra Facebook page and logistics for student-designed orchestra T-shirts.
Massey wholeheartedly stands behind the Board’s goals for the upcoming semesters, especially since he took on the time-consuming roles of orchestra leader, librarian and personnel manager until the Board’s creation.
“It makes it much more enjoyable from my point of view, because I don’t do everything,” he said. “No one person who’s part-time, living 100 miles away, could do all this.”
In the past few years, a traditional sign-up sheet has been unable to attract a sufficient number of student players to the orchestra. As a result, Massey has turned to a more active recruitment process, seeking out musicians beforehand and inviting them to audition. During the past school year, student numbers have fluctuated considerably, hitting a low in J-Term and reaching a peak of approximately 40 members.
“Student content in the orchestra is much more fluid. It changes much faster than it used to,” he said. “More and more people have obligations they can’t get out of. People keep sending me notes saying, ‘I wish I could do this, but…’”
Massey has led the orchestral program at the College since 2009, following conducting stints with the Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Vermont Youth Orchestra and much more. Though he makes it a point to find a place in the orchestra for all interested student players, over the years, he has found it to be increasingly difficult to maintain a full, continuous ensemble, leading him to recruit outside musicians. As such, the J-Term orchestra production of Eroica, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, involved an eclectic mix of students, staff, hired professionals and community members.
Despite the smashing success of the Eroica performance, overall, the lack of student involvement has created challenges for certain sections, which must work harder to make themselves heard over the rest of the orchestra. Sadeh used to be the lone student cellist, requiring greater accountability as a musician.
“You can’t allow yourself to make mistakes,” he said. “You really need to be solid and hold up your part as the only cello.”
Though there remains much to be done to transform the orchestra into a bigger, stronger and more cohesive force on campus, Massey and members alike acknowledge the unique treasure that they hold. This past year’s stellar repertoire, which encompasses Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, Rossini, Haydn and more, has provided students with an incredible array of musical opportunities.
“I think that the music scene at Middlebury doesn’t really include classical music, so playing in the orchestra is a great way for me to perform this kind of music with other people,” violinist Ben Tindall ’17.5 said.
Even Massey hesitated to choose a favorite from the esteemed repertoire of the past year.
“I try to be an equal-opportunity adorer of the music,” he said.
He cited the students’ musical intuition as a key factor behind his passion for conducting at the College.
“Very often with a professional orchestra, the people can play all the notes immediately,” he said. “But getting them to play a certain way, with a certain phrasing and architecture, can be quite difficult. Whereas here, to some degree, the players aren’t that skilled. They’re not professional-level players. I mean, a few are close, but generally speaking, you can’t take for granted that they can play all the notes. But they get the idea much more quickly. And that I find very, very enjoyable.”
Despite the challenges of this year, members of the orchestra have found plenty of reason to laugh, smile and bond over the delicious array of snacks that Massey provides during each rehearsal break. Unity between sections may still be a work in progress, but there is certainly no shortage of close friendships that have arisen from the shared experience of music-making.
Cross expressed hope for a more campus-wide appreciation for orchestra performances.
“At the end of the day, the musicians in orchestra are your friends and classmates,” she said. “I’ve never talked to anyone who regretted coming to an orchestra concert. We work very hard at and outside of rehearsal to sound the best we possibly can, and it would be fantastic if more people could hear and enjoy our efforts. As ambitious as it sounds, I want people to come out and support the orchestra the same way they support sports teams.”
With large-scale concerts scheduled for mid-April, it will soon be clear how the new measures will impact the ensemble’s popularity on campus. While it is uncontested amongst members that the orchestra is one of the greatest hidden gems on campus, as the Board relieves Massey of some of his administrative struggles and implements change from within, perhaps even brighter days are soon to come.
(02/18/15 11:33pm)
Amidst the flashy festivities of Winter Carnival, this past weekend marked the second annual performance of The Vagina Monologues in the Hepburn Zoo. An episodic play written in 1996 by Middlebury alum Eve Ensler ’75, the production delves unabashedly into various elements of the female experience, including sex, love, menstruation, masturbation and birth. Proceeds from each sold-out performance Feb. 12 to 14 went toward WomenSafe, a 24-hour hotline dedicated to ending domestic and sexual violence.
Sponsored by the on-campus women’s resources center, Chellis House, and directed by Jiya Pandya ’17 and Sandra Markowitz ’15.5, The Vagina Monologues consisted of “happy facts” and “not-so-happy facts” about vaginas, as well as deeply personal, real-life stories of empowerment, inner turmoil and self-reflection. The heavy monologues came interspersed with moments of humor and warmth, bringing the audience on an emotional journey of sympathy, discomfort, bemusement, joy and everything in between.
While the original, off-Broadway performance featured actresses delivering monologues alone onstage, the College production branched off to include group scenes, interpretive movements and interactive dialogues. The result was a fascinating and elegant narrative on sexuality, female identity and the challenges of womanhood, as performed by a cast of 14 female students.
“These monologues have been done a countless number of times,” explained actress Akhila Khanna ’17. “For more feeling of unity and community, this production incorporated many actors.”
Indeed, in the intimate performing space of the Hepburn Zoo, where the actresses often stood within an arm’s reach of the front row and some audience members sat sprawled on the floor, an overwhelming sense of support and solidarity resonated throughout the performance. Before the opening scene, Pandya and Markowitz led the audience in a rousing chant of “vagina,” explaining that it was crucial that everyone become comfortable with the word before sitting through the highly uncensored 90-minute performance.
If anyone thought that “vagina” was bad, then they certainly must have felt squeamish during the opening scene as the cast named off a rapid-fire list of alternate names for the organ. From “Pussycat” in Great Neck, New York to “twat” in New Jersey to “Pooki” in Westchester, it quickly became clear that the vagina is the bearer of many colorful titles.
Yet, as narrator Jeanette Cortez ’15 noted: “There’s so much darkness and secrecy surrounding [vaginas] – like the Bermuda triangle. Nobody ever reports back from there.”
Building from that, the play proceeded to unravel much of society’s misperceptions surrounding the vagina – what it is like, what it goes through and what it needs. A sense of candid honesty pulsed through the monologues, a few of which ranted furiously against tampons, advocated for a greater love of vaginal hair (described sweetly by Becca Hicks ’15 as “the leaf around the flower, the lawn around the house”) and recounted one woman’s first pleasurable, lesbian experience. In the latter enticing monologue, “The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could,” KJ Davidson-Turner ’17.5 took on a fascinatingly complex character with a traumatic past.
“I realize later [the lady] was my surprising, unexpected and politically incorrect salvation,” Davidson-Turner stated in her vivid closing lines. “She transformed my sorry-ass Coochi Snorcher and raised it into a kind of heaven.”
As the play charged on, the crowd clapped, laughed and snapped appreciatively at each new striking commentary and witty insight. At other moments, when the scenes broached on incredibly dark themes of rape, genital mutilation and abuse, the room fell silent.
“Female genital mutilation has been inflicted on approximately 130 million girls and young women,” narrator Cortez stated at one point. “In the 28 countries where it is practiced, mostly in Africa, about three million young girls a year can expect the knife – or the razor or a glass shard – to cut their clitoris or remove it altogether.”
Like many audience members hearing this fact for the first time, actress Mary Baillie ’18 found it difficult to deal with such heavy material.
“I still can’t listen to that,” she said. “I was really happy because my monologue was right after [the genital mutilation piece], so I could just go to the dressing room and get ready for that. I would just sit there with my ears covered.”
One scene in particular managed to strike a touching balance between deep vulnerability and lightheartedness. Wrapped in a dark red shawl and hunched over on a stool, Michelle Kim ’17 enraptured the audience in a poignant tribute to one elderly woman’s closeted relationship to her “down-there.” Following a nervous sexual encounter in her teens, she now refers to her vagina as damp, clammy, and “closed due to flooding.”
“I haven’t been down there since 1953. No, it had nothing to do with Eisenhower,” she said, prompting giggles from the crowd.
With no theatrics or fellow actresses for onstage support, Kim spoke directly into the audience, putting her earnest storytelling skills and endearing mannerisms on
full display.
While the power of her performance lay in its quiet, thoughtful honesty, another highly impactful scene featured a dynamic self-written monologue by Khanna and Sally Seitz ’17. Hailing respectively from New Delhi, India and Nashville, Tennessee, the two women channeled the strict sexual standards of each of their cultures by preaching impassionately to the audience. Khanna wore Hindu prayer beads around her neck, while Sally donned a large cross necklace.
“Thou shall not touch thyself. Thou shalt have no idea what it looks like down there,” Seitz said.
“Do not sleep around. Bilkul Nahi,” Khanna announced sternly. “We choose your single sexual partner.”
Their lines played off of each other, crafting an intriguing parallel between two seemingly far-removed places. Near the end, their monologues began to intersect even more closely, as both actresses paused and asked simultaneously, “Why do I feel guilty? Is this my fault?”
While the entire show ventured outside normal boundaries of comfort, perhaps the most unforgettably daring moment came down to a scene in which each actress mimicked a certain type of sex moan. The cast arranged themselves in various positions onstage – standing, sprawled out with their legs slightly open, and lying down – and took turns simulating such sounds as the “doggy” moan, the “college” moan (“I should be studying. I should be studying”) and the “tortured Zen” moan, an exaggerated, twisted cry that left the audience in hysterics.
Though Khanna initially felt uneasy about the moaning scene, she eventually came to terms with the bold material.
“The minute you imagine yourself as an advocate for female sexuality and for other people who are as shy and as uncomfortable about the word ‘vagina’ as you are, it’s a lot easier to go onstage,” she said. “You’re representing other people’s stories and hardships.”
With every piece of biting social commentary or provocative phrase uttered onstage, The Vagina Monologues burst open a subject that remains largely untouched in everyday conversation. Through its unapologetic forwardness, the show put on stunning display both the fearlessness of the cast and many inconvenient realities of the female experience. Uncomfortable as some of the topics may be, the messages of empowerment, exploration and acceptance behind the production deserve to be heeded. As such, perhaps it was fitting that this year’s rendition of The Vagina Monologues coincided with Valentine’s Day weekend.
“Everyone should take the time to appreciate the women in their life,” Baillie said. “The power of the female is unstoppable.”
(02/11/15 11:59pm)
The end of this year’s whirlwind J-term brought in the highly-anticipated Ragtime musical, a co-production by Town Hall Theater (THT) and the Middlebury College Department of Music. Dealing with the turmoil, tensions and triumphs of early twentieth-century America, Ragtime follows the lives of Harlem musician Coalhouse Walker Jr., played by Steven Kasparek ’16, a white upper-class family in New Rochelle, New York, and Tateh, a Jewish immigrant, played by Jack DesBois ’15, who leaves Latvia to make a life for himself and his young daughter in the Lower East Side. The cast performed to sold-out audiences at THT every night from Jan. 22 to 26.
As per J-term musical tradition, the entire production was put together during intensive rehearsals over a span of three weeks. The cast came in knowing all the music and lines, but worked long hours to build the set and piece the entire 38-number show together. Likewise, the orchestra had only two weeks to rehearse the score.
Of the 33 actors, some were experiencing their first taste of theater, others were seasoned members of the department and four were hired professionals.
“In order to do Ragtime properly, you really need to balance the three ensembles, and we didn’t get enough for a turnout for the African-American Harlem ensemble, so we had to hire out some people,” stage manager Alex Williamson ’17 said.
Despite the wide range of acting experience within the cast, Ragtime proved to be a seamless and vibrant production, particularly through its smooth transitions and careful choreography. Leaving no more than ten or so seconds between acts, the cast expertly navigated the stage to create scenes of drastically different setups – from the slums of New York to a baseball stadium to a lush Victorian estate.
“Since Ragtime is all musical numbers, it’s important for it to flow like a dance,” Williamson said. “One thing leads nicely into another.”
A flurry of changing developments within the United States marks the first act of the play. Riots against the ravages of American capitalism pop up across the country, waves of immigrants arrive at Ellis Island with hope in their hearts and nothing but the clothes on their backs and many white Americans with long-established roots in the United States grapple with their growing distaste toward all outsiders. Indeed, the wealthy residents of New Rochelle reminisce joyously in the opening number of the musical, singing, “Ladies with parasols/Fellows with tennis balls/There were no negroes/And there were no immigrants,” only to be interrupted by the shouts of Eastern Europeans boarding a ship for Ellis Island.
From a meticulously-built Model T car prop to the appearance of legendary stunt artist Harry Houdini, played by David Fine ’17, the musical was filled with historical references that set a rich context for the three interlinking narratives of Tateh, Coalhouse and the wealthy white family. This traditional household is headed by the doting Mother, performed by Hannah Johnston ’15.5 and the strong-willed Father, played by Michael McCann ’15. The role of Evelyn Nesbit, the dazzling, real-life vaudeville personality, played brilliantly by Caitlin Duffy ’15.5, further contributed to the realism of the production. Her flamboyant ways and extravagant, shimmering costumes served as a delightful tribute to popular entertainment of the times.
During Act I, Mother discovers an abandoned Negro baby in the front yard of their Victorian estate, and decides to provide refuge for both him and the mother, Sarah, played by professional Diana Thompson. The story escalates quickly from there, as Sarah’s ex-lover, Coalhouse, attempts to court her, eventually wins her over and then tragically loses her when she is beaten to death at a campaign rally in New Rochelle. Her death leaves him a bitter and angry man. As a result, Act II carries a much darker tone, with Coalhouse seeking to find justice within a radically flawed social system. Meanwhile, the growing rift between Mother and Father, who don’t see eye to eye on the racially-charged turmoil of the times, as well as the rising success of the exuberant and hardworking Tateh offer alternative perspectives on the multi-faceted, fast-paced nature of 1920s America.
Amidst the heavy material of the play, Little Boy, the young son of the white upper-class family, provides a refreshing and innocent presence. Portrayed by Emilie Seavey ’18, who donned a cap over her short blonde hair, Little Boy easily breaks the tension in the room when Coalhouse comes to the family’s posh house in search of his ex-lover, Sarah.
“This is Sarah’s baby,” Little Boy tells him, gesturing toward a crib in the corner. He then asks brightly, “You want a cookie?” — an absurdly innocent inquiry that drew laughs from the crowd. His childish obliviousness and endearing eagerness help to lighten the mood in scenes that brim with tension, fear and uncertainty.
Alongside astounding vocals by the entire cast, the visual effects of the production added a lavish charm that appealed greatly to the audience. One particularly awe-inspiring display featured Tateh flipping through a book of moving sketches with his daughter. As they gaze at the pages, a woman, played by Duffy, dances gracefully behind a transparent curtain at the back of the stage. Strobe lights flash upon her flowing figure, creating choppy movements that gorgeously mimic the effect of paging through a continuous sequence of sketches.
Meanwhile, the upper-class white family — particularly the females — don extravagant clothing that beautifully reflects the fashions of the times, from skirts that flared out at the bottom to high lace collars to pigeon-breasted blouses. Only one element was missing — most women of money wore dresses with lace trains; but seeing as such extensive costumes likely would’ve caused the actresses to stumble onstage, costume designer Annie Ulrich ’13 added ruffles at the bottoms of their dresses instead. Nevertheless, the juxtaposition between the upper-class family’s fancy white outfits — complete with delicate parasols and thin lace gloves — and the immigrants’ dark, tattered rags created a striking visual display of privilege and disparity.
Despite the old-fashioned outfits and radically different culture of ragtime and vaudeville entertainment, the timeless themes of race, oppression and injustice that underlie this stunning musical resonated deeply with the Middlebury community.
“This play is incredibly pertinent to the current atmosphere and the events that happened in the fall, between Ferguson and the New York cases of police brutality,” Ulrich said. “Racism is on everyone’s mind these days.”
Though the final scenes were scattered with tragedy, the story ultimately ended on a heartwarming note, ringing with messages of optimism and new beginnings. Connor Pisano ’17, who played the crotchety, racist grandfather of the upper-class family, encapsulated the juxtapositions inherent in the piece.
“The original author wrote the play for a Broadway audience,” Pisano said. “People go to the theater for an uplifting message or some kind of hope. But [Ragtime] is too tragic for most of the show to have some kind of random happy ending.”
Indeed, there’s no denying that in all of its lavish charm, the musical was strategically marketed to a broad audience. The sweeping score and poignant performances of the Middlebury production are bound to linger in the minds of anyone who was lucky enough to experience this magnificent feat of artistry. And ultimately, whether or not the epilogue accurately reflects the nature of reality, Ragtime serves as not only a rich insight on America’s troubled past but also a meaningful outlook on the turbulence that has continued into modern times.
(01/21/15 11:23pm)
In a society dominated by technology, it is oftentimes difficult to distinguish between what is possible and what is necessary. Critically-acclaimed monologist Mike Daisey brought this complicated question to the forefront of the audience’s minds in Faster Better Social, a 75-minute performance on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 16 and 17 at the Wright Memorial Theater. Working around the theme of technology, Daisey engaged the audience in a delightful, provocative and improvised speech on the evolution of the iPhone, the human species’ transformation into cyborgs, his self-proclaimed addiction to his phone and everything in between.
Seated behind a desk onstage and swathed in a bright yellow spotlight, Daisey opened with a poignant remark: “We’ve reached a tipping point … when we have to beg you to turn off phones before the show.” He proceeded to announce, “This is kind of an intervention. We’re addicted together.”
This tone of keen self-awareness and unapologetic honesty carried on through the rest of the performance, with Daisey conceding, “I’m a man of the times. Like you, I’d rather be on my phone.” His admission drew laughs of understanding from the audience, but quickly segued into more uncomfortable truths about the relationship between humans and screens.
Despite the world of infinite possibilities available at our fingertips, Daisey expressed concern over the amount of control that technology can hold over us. From the feeling of anxiety that overcomes us when we are away from our phones for too long, to the overbearing ways of Facebook Messenger, which demands to have sound notifications turned on in order to function properly, he pointed out that the tool often seems to use us rather than the other way around.
During the post-performance talk with the artist on Saturday night, Daisey explained that his entire monologue arose from less than ten words’ worth of notes that he had brought onstage. All of his speeches are improvised as such, leading to performances that feel like casual conversations with the audience. As Daisey put it, each monologue stems from “my conscious mind working in conjunction with my subconscious.” Perhaps as a result of this, his storytelling followed no clear, linear path, but rather gave way to a series of entertaining tangents before coming full circle.
One such tangent centered on Daisey’s attempt to raise a Tamagotchi pet – a “cursed creature,” as he put it. His lengthy retelling of his disastrous experience left the audience in hysterics. “I tried to raise it with a lover,” he said. “Much like a flip phone, it did one thing very well – create virtual shit.”
Since Daisey’s shows function more as spur-of-the-moment intellectual musings instead of pre-rehearsed speeches, his Faster Better Social monologues were radically different each night, with only a couple minutes’ worth of overlapping material. Friday night’s performance touched on social networking, oversharing, and loneliness, while Saturday’s monologue focused on the phone’s role as a portal to another reality.
“The smartphone collapses the universe into a field the size of a deck of playing cards, with an infinite number of cards,” Daisey said.
Following this, his hilarious frustrations with the Apple brand quickly came to light, as he described the first iPhone as “a fluid, beautiful interface” that ultimately proved to be “fundamentally horrible.” Later on, he remarked of the iPhone 5, “The vibrations are only loud enough so that everyone can hear them.”
Furthermore, the master storyteller reflected on the changing nature of human connections in the age of the smartphone. The audience laughed along as he remarked on the absurdity of some newfound social norms – such as texting to ask for permission before calling someone, the struggle to sound engaged during phone calls and the use of “multiplatform harassment” to contact people when they prove unresponsive on one social networking medium. Beyond the funny reenactments and sarcasm-laced comments, however, Daisey provided a thought-provoking critique of humans’ fumbling interactions via smartphones. As he noted, “Technology eliminates the fictional politeness that allows the real world to function.”
Though Daisey called out some audience members for using their phones during the show (“I can see the glow on your faces,” he pointed out amusedly), he displayed a stark relatability by making explicit his own obsession with technology. “If I give up my phone, I live a new, empowered life … completely and utterly alone,” he said seriously, acknowledging a fear undoubtedly felt by many young people today.
In the end, it is this relatability that caused Daisey’s performance to resonate so deeply with the audience. By sharing his own struggles with his smartphone, he became a friend and trusted confidant for every single member of the audience. With each new confession, it grew abundantly clear that he was not there to judge, berate or guilt us for our obsessive, and arguably pathetic, habit of checking our texts every five minutes. (Indeed, he even commented near the end that he, too, was anxiously awaiting to reunite with his phone backstage.) Rather, his monologue served to inform, to reflect and above all, to question.
Despite the fact that his performance focused largely on the drawbacks of living with smartphones, never once did Daisey try to label technology as clearly good or bad. In fact, he ended with a positive insight, noting humans’ potential to harness the tool for their own benefit, rather than fall prey to the endless bane of pinging notifications and useless posts.
“Our attention spans haven’t changed,” he said. “We choose how many interruptions we will have.”
Throughout the impressively eloquent, improvised monologue, Daisey demonstrated a sharp wit and a profound societal awareness unparalleled by that of most other members of his generation. As our phones become bombarded by push notifications, text messages and ungodly loud vibrating sounds, may Daisey’s words serve as a reminder to us all that the interplay between our virtual and real-world lives is largely within our control.
(12/03/14 10:30pm)
The terms “suicide” and “comedy” generally do not go well together, but Protocol, an entirely student-produced play that ran in the Hepburn Zoo from Nov. 20-22, managed to merge these two themes beautifully. As the audience followed the complicated lives of a group of twenty-something-year-old friends, it became clear that even in the darkest of times, it is perfectly okay to laugh.
The play, written by Erica Furgiuele ’15 and directed by Hannah Johnston ’15.5, begins on a rather heavy note as the troubled and sarcastic main character Harry, played by Boone McCoy-Crisp ’16, attempts suicide. Yet even as he pops pill after pill into his mouth, gazing intently into the audience with sorrowful eyes, his monologue gives way to bits of light comedy.
Life, Harry proclaims, is “one beautiful but deadly mathematical curve towards oblivion.” He then remarks, “Man, I should have been a poet. But I gave it up for my real love … auditing. I just do limericks on the side sometimes.”
This type of humor becomes Harry’s trademark throughout the play, which follows him and his friends dealing with the aftermath of his suicide attempt. As playwright Furgiuele explained, “The comedic mask that he puts on is how he hides his pain from other people.” Through moments of insecurity, tenderness and frustration, McCoy-Crisp’s poignant portrayal of Harry’s struggle to shed his mental-case identity and navigate his personal life showcased the incredible range of his acting skill.
Following the dark exposition, the rest of the play takes on a lighter note as Harry and his ex-girlfriend Meg, played by Joelle Mendoza-Etchart ’15, rekindle their complicated romance and their friends, Elle, played by Furgiuele, and Arthur, played by Michael McCann ’15, prepare for their wedding. Along the way, Meg seeks life advice from her witty, energetic and elderly chess partner Pierre, played by Jack DesBois ’15, fends off Elle’s incessant meddling in her love life and butts heads with Harry’s passive-aggressive brother Cole, played by Jabari Matthew ’17, who does not approve of her re-entrance into Harry’s life.
The flurry of intersecting events and relationships made for tightly packed scenes, which jumped from hospital rooms to coffee shops to a disastrous Christmas party involving burnt quiche. Through it all, Protocol provided a delightful and, at times, painfully accurate depiction of reality. As each character’s quirks, flaws and inner conflicts were exposed, emotionally charged confrontations and temporary falling-outs inevitably followed.
Furgiuele crafted the play with the multifaceted nature of humanity in mind.
“The most beautiful and the ugliest parts of us are inextricably linked,” she said. “When you know someone, you need to embrace all parts of them, no matter how hard it is. All of these characters are deeply flawed, but also very beautiful and very wonderful to behold.”
The actors, whom director Johnston described as “naturally funny,” delivered their performances with both honesty and likeability, fully enveloping themselves in the struggles and mindsets of their respective characters. Mendoza-Etchart’s earnest portrayal of Meg, who wanders through life with a fair amount of uncertainty, struck an affectionate chord with the audience, particularly as she anxiously voiced her inner monologue in preparation for her first post-breakup date with Harry. Meanwhile, the relaxed chemistry between actors McCann and Matthew set the foundation for scenes of comedic gold, namely whilst husband-to-be Arthur and his best man, Cole, frantically cobble together their wedding speeches.
The audience enthusiastically received DesBois’s performance as Pierre – Meg’s nursing home friend, chess partner and unofficial life adviser.
With his thick French accent, energetic stage presence and lush white hair, which let out puffs of baby power each time he kissed Meg animatedly on the cheek, Pierre provided a charming and hilarious distraction from the strife of the young adults. His role ultimately proved to be crucial to the plot, after his sage advice convinces Meg to reconsider her actions toward Harry.
From the director’s chair, Johnston struggled to set the right tone for the production.
“How do I make this a play that people know that they can laugh at, and at the same time not make light of the serious stuff going on?” she recalled asking herself.
In one of the most serious moments of the play, Harry confronts Meg about the empty medicine cabinet and questions her trust in him in the wake of his suicide attempt. McCoy-Crisp and Mendoza-Etchart executed the shifting dynamics within this scene brilliantly, creating a dramatic turning point within the story.
Furgiuele found this emotional interaction the most difficult to write.
“It’s easy to be funny and make jokes, but it’s hard to say what you mean because words are these flimsy things,” she said.
Despite the dark premise of the play – suicide, heartbreak and the severance of ties – a sense of hope and possibility pervades at the end, with everyone putting their disputes aside to celebrate Elle and Arthur’s wedding. In following Meg and Harry’s fumbled attempts to redefine their relationship through shared blueberry muffins, spilled coffees and difficult conversations, the audience gains a newfound appreciation for love and companionship.
“I hope audience members take away the idea that even though love is really difficult and most of the time doesn’t work out, it’s still worth trying for,” Johnston said.
The ultimate goal, she added, was “to make people laugh and think and go home a little happier than before.”
By striking the right balance between tears and smiles, melancholy and lightheartedness, this beautifully crafted suicide comedy managed to do just that.
(11/20/14 12:43am)
The student production A Small, Good Thing, which ran from Nov. 13-15 in the Hepburn Zoo, grappled with topics of death, sorrow and despair as based on Raymond Carver’s 1989 short story of the same name. A piece of devised theater, the play was built from the evolving visions of the four-person cast, director Tosca Giustini ’15.5 and other contributing members of the theatre community.
During the intimate, hour-long performance, the audience of around 20 people sat in a rectangular arrangement that closely resembled a waiting room, complete with a table of books and magazines and a fake door in the corner. The play begins unconventionally, as Kathleen Gudas ’16.5 – presumably a woman trying to pass time before an appointment – picks up a book from her seat in the audience and starts to read aloud.
Scenes of a mother ordering a cake for her son’s birthday, a car hitting the boy on his way to school and his mother rushing him to the hospital quickly unfold through Gudas’ expressive narration. Meanwhile, the mother, played by Melissa MacDonald ’15, and father, acted by Eduardo Danino-Beck ’15, appear, bringing the story to life through emotionally charged dialogue and interpretive physical interactions. The chameleon of the cast, Kevin Benscheidt ’17, continuously crosses paths with them – first as a baker, and then as various doctors and nurses.
As the parents deal with heartbreaking hospital reports and mysterious, harassing phone calls that repeatedly reference their comatose son Scotty, the narrator’s words provide an engaging backdrop that seamlessly connect one difficult scene after another. In certain moments, Gudas chose to implicate herself within the story through reactionary facial expressions and physical proximity to characters. In others, she served as a more passive backdrop, watching the action unfold from a distance.
The waiting room-style setup created an interactive audience experience as actors ran between chairs during action-packed scenes, placing themselves within reach of audience members as they gathered props from under seats. Furthermore, the closeness served to envelop audience members within the emotional intensity of the story. With each facial expression, gesture and uttered word on full display, it was easy to sense the mother’s anguish, the father’s despair and the narrator’s increasing emotional investment in their heart-wrenching story.
A minimal use of props helped to further showcase the cast’s stellar acting skills. The child, Scotty, is represented by a white wooden box. MacDonald and Danino-Beck interact with it heavily throughout the play, caressing it, picking it up and gazing at it lovingly. During a hospital check-up scene, MacDonald, Danino-Beck and Benscheidt merge their bodies to mimic the sound and motion of a steady heartbeat in an evocative human representation of a stethoscope. In addition, during the many phone exchanges, the actors used no props, but rather conversed with each other from opposite ends of the stage. It is only during the last scene that one of the few real props appears: a plate of baked goods.
“I wanted the food to be literal rather than representative as an indication that the fantasy of the story is dying down,” Giustini said.
In these final moments, as the parents mourn Scotty’s recent passing, the meaning of the play’s title becomes clear as the baker wisely notes, “Eating is a small, good thing in a time like this.” The parents, who have barely eaten since Scotty was rushed to the hospital, scarf down the treats.
Despite the sad storyline, the cast tried to avoid “deadly” melodrama by injecting bits of light humor into the play. One hospital check-up features Benscheidt as a bumbling doctor with a ridiculously oversized mustache, which provoked laughter from the audience. Later, the wife walks into a bakery and makes the laughably obvious remark, “It smells like a bakery in here. Doesn’t it smell like a bakery in here, Howard?”
Improvisation of movement and dialogue played a key role in shaping the play. In addition, the cast worked with different divisions of the original text, switched around roles and experimented with various props and settings until up to two weeks before the first performance.
Giustini enjoyed the visual opportunities her directorial role provided.
“Directing is kind of like painting,” she said. “Your actors are your colors. Being a performer, it’s picking the different colors of different moments. But when you’re the director, the painter, you’re putting the colors together and making them dance together.”
The dark material of A Small, Good Thing proved to be the most challenging aspect.
“How do we as twenty- or twenty-one-year-olds present that we know what it’s like to lose a child?” Giustini asked. “You can’t do that. It’s impossible, and it’s kind of awkward sometimes.”
As the impactful performances, powerfully arranged scenes and poignant narration demonstrated, meaningful storytelling surrounding difficult topics is achievable. Giustini hopes that the story will at least lead audience members to a simple but significant realization.
“Even in the worst possible situation, you still have to eat,” she said.
Within this starkly moving piece of devised theater, then, the value lies not in some profound, overarching life lesson, but rather in its stunningly honest depiction of human sorrow and misfortune.
(11/12/14 9:53pm)
Sunday, Nov. 9 marked the fifth annual TEDx event at Middlebury College. TED is a non-profit organization that seeks to spark dialogue and spread ideas through talks, touching on anything from science to society to art. Since its inception in 1984, the organization has garnered massive global attention and now hosts an average of nine conferences per day around the world. Time and time again, TED talks have thrilled, captivated and startled audiences by uprooting pre-conceived notions and exposing innovative ideas and creations. With eight dynamic live speakers, two video presentations and an eclectic range of topics, the Middlebury conference proved to be no exception.
Each speaker took a different approach to the theme “Living in the Question: The Ongoing Process of Curiosity.” Will Nash, a Middlebury professor of American Studies, unraveled the importance of curiosity. As he explained, the greatest value lies not in an answer but rather in the continual exploration of a question – “the path around the circuit.”
“Access the path as many ways as possible,” Nash said. “You’ll be richer for it.”
Middlebury alumni Shane Scranton ’12.5 and Nate Beatty ’13.5 demonstrated the power of curiosity through technological experimentation. They showed the audience a prototype of the oculus rift, a lens that allows wearers to access a virtual reality – an image projected onto the lens to encompass the user’s entire field of vision. This type of technology was originally used to create immersive gaming experiences. Scranton and Beatty took it to the next level by developing technology that could transfer 3-D models of real buildings and landscapes to the oculus rift.
“Virtual reality takes away the need for architectural metaphors,” Scranton explained.
Renderings, 2-D images that Scranton referred to as “extrapolations of space,” require the brain to fill in the surroundings, whereas virtual reality allows architects to inhabit their own designs.
While Scranton and Beatty’s presentation dealt with innovative ways of using space, a talk delivered by Mordecai-Mark Mac Low, a curator of astrophysics at the American Museum of National History in New York, addressed physical reality on a much grander scale: the expanding universe. In his fascinating narrative, he explained that visible light has been traveling and stretching through the universe since the Big Bang. Scientists attribute the accelerating rate of expansion to a mysterious, hypothetical force known as dark energy, perfectly exemplifying that even within the realm of physics, uncertainty can still reign supreme.
Other talks from the conference challenged societal norms by addressing issues of sexuality and gender. Lourdes Ashley Hunter captivated the audience with her riveting stage presence and powerful rhetoric on the transgender community, particularly transgender women of color. A healer, orator and academic, she expressed the hope for a reconstruction of the gender binary that would eradicate oppression against transgender individuals.
“From birth, kids are indoctrinated to prescribed gender norms,” Hunter said. “[But] gender is an explosion of expression,” existing on a spectrum rather than in black-and-white terms.
Her riveting oratory resonated strongly with the audience, and provided an empowering voice to the trans-color movement.
Similarly, Rachel Liddell ’15 received an enthusiastic reception from her peers during her talk on sex, politics and power. Beginning with the story of a “dickish doodler” who vandalized one of her campaign posters, Liddell went on to challenge society’s tendency to sexualize women in power. From naked depictions of Cleopatra’s death to the media’s fixation on Hillary Clinton’s appearance, Liddell pointed out that we subject women to treatment that undermines female authority and disregards their pluri-potentiality as individuals.
Liddell’s grace, humor and charisma shined through in her speech, particularly during her analysis of the public’s obsession with Clinton’s pantsuits. Furthermore, her words provoked deep introspection within the room, as she challenged her peers to not fall into the same patterns of judgment that have long disadvantaged women and hindered societal progress.
Meanwhile, author Jack Hitt offered an insightful commentary on the changing societal attitudes toward legalizing marijuana in the United States. Engaging the audience with his easygoing but magnetic speaking style, he noted a dichotomy between “information you say you believe” and “information you’ll act on.” The latter, which leads to more widespread acceptance, is gained through everyday conversations.
“Revolutions don’t happen on election day,” Hitt said. “[Instead,] local cohorts show us the reality of lived life.”
In other words, interactions with normal people who happen to smoke pot subvert the negative stereotype of “loser stoners,” thus increasing societal acceptance of pot legalization.
By far the most visually enthralling presentation was choreographer and Assistant Professor of Dance Christal Brown’s beautifully improvised dance, which exhibited movement as a powerful medium of expression. For the first part, a screen behind Brown channeled her inner monologue. “Dance is my truest form of communication,” the opening line read. “Which is ironic because you have no idea what I’m trying to say, lol.” However, the audience soon came to understand her fluid movements as physical manifestations of her subconscious impulses.
“I speak volumes without saying anything,” Brown said after she had finished dancing.
Brown encouraged the audience to engage in new forms of expression, leaving them with the advice, “Before you think, respond with anything you have at your disposal.”
The TEDx Middlebury conference showcased a fascinating range of ideas that stretched the audience’s minds from the Big Bang to the Roman Empire, from virgin lovers to dark energy and from inside the clunky lens of an oculus rift to the far-reaching ends of the galaxy. Each talk was delivered in a uniquely resounding manner, creating a diverse panel of voices from which to draw inspiration and insight. Above all, however, the TEDx talks served to unite the Middlebury community through a tremendously significant idea – that it is not about having the right answer, but rather about asking the right questions.
(11/06/14 2:55am)
Walk down to the quiet center of Johnson Memorial Building, and you will stumble across an artistic gem: the Pinhole Photography showcase, which lasts until Thursday, Nov. 6 and is bound to intrigue its viewers. The product of one month’s worth of experimentation by Fletcher Professor of Studio Art John Huddleston’s ART 0327, this exhibit features photography in its purest, most primitive form.
Though the pinhole technique – the earliest, most basic type of photography – has been largely overrun by more efficient digital methods, the exhibit proves to be both engaging and accessible to modern onlookers. Each student chose four works to put on display, forming an eclectic collection of images that showcase everything from bikes to self-portraits to natural scenery.
A pinhole camera is a small, light-tight black box with a tiny hole on one side. A 4-by-5-inch piece of light-sensitive negative paper is placed on the wall opposite the pinhole. As light from a scene passes through the tiny hole, a reversed image of the scene is projected onto the film. Despite the simple structure of pinhole cameras, however, the process that goes behind each photograph is quite laborious.
Unlike digital cameras, pinhole cameras need an extended amount of exposure time in order to record a scene. Depending on the artistic vision of the photographer and the amount of light available, capturing a quality image can take anywhere from 30 seconds to several hours. For example, due to higher levels of brightness in outside areas, outdoor shots typically require less exposure time than indoor shots. Images may turn out blurry if a human subject accidentally moves within the exposure period; thus, exposure times for portraits only last between several seconds to a few minutes. In double-exposure shots, the photographer can record one scene, cover the pinhole with a shutter, alter the position of human subjects within the frame, and then remove the shutter to capture a second image – resulting in a final, composite image of two scenes melded seamlessly into one.
The time-consuming nature of pinhole photography shapes a unique relationship between the photographer and the subject. Emily Cavanagh ’14.5, a student in Huddleston’s class, was struck by the sense of vulnerability in people as they remained perfectly still for minutes at a time. She would try not to look at them, preferring instead to read them stories. As a result, the process that went behind crafting each scene held as much value as the end product, if not more so.
“There was this guy in my class with cool hair, so I asked him if I could take some portraits of him,” Cavanagh said. “It was the first time we had ever spoken. I read him his Mayan astrology during one of the photos. We were sword-fighting in another one. I really got to know him in a pretty intimate setting.”
As evidenced by the blurry edges, chemical stains and light damage visible in various works of the exhibit, perfection in pinhole photography is difficult to achieve. There lies a certain beauty in these photographic flaws, however. As Huddleton noted, “Sometimes accidents can be very productive in photography.”
These accidents, which Huddleton described as “markers of the process,” can be observed in a blurry, close-up shot of an eye, which appears to be half-open, half-closed due to the subject’s blinking movement during the exposure period. In another image, a chemical stain, the result of an accident in the dark room, decorates the sky like a wisp of dark smoke moving fluidly through the air.
Huddleton explained the effect of blurriness on one student’s photograph of a man in a car. While we have seen a lot of pictures similar to this photograph before, Huddleton identified the lack of focus as the transformative element that changes the meaning behind the image.
“Car and man become anonymous,” Huddleton said. “The attempt at man-in-car stereotype becomes subverted by the camera. It becomes a stereotype of the stereotype.”
One of Cavanagh’s works serves as another example of the artistic value of photographic accidents. Featuring a girl in a black bra with a lampshade on her head, the image embodies what Cavanagh described as a “clichéd hyper-sexualization.”
“The photo is a little sad,” she said. “It’s like her identity doesn’t matter, but she’s sexualized because she has a bra on.”
Because the subject moved a little bit during the exposure process, the backdrop is much clearer than her body. This lack of focus serves to further dehumanize the subject. Such imperfections stimulate the onlooker’s mind and add a new, enigmatic dimension to the photo.
The varying perspectives of the world that the students present through their photographs provide onlookers with a fleeting but intimate glimpse into their minds. The result is an exhibit filled with evocative and fascinating images that speak volumes about the human experience. It is photography in its most raw form. Pinhole images may not fall under the category of conventionally beautiful art, but what they lack in pristineness they make up for in depth.