The Morrison Center for the Performing Arts’ Danny Peterson theatre played backdrop to “Becoming: An Evening of Short Plays” on Thursday, Oct. 11.
This performance, put on by the Department of Theatre Arts, brought audience members closer to the performers than in most plays.
To begin the show, three actors sat on the floor as people found their seats.
The actors were stoic and silent. Each of the three performers took off their shoes in sync and walked off-stage as the performance began.
The Director’s Note in the performance program read, “We often don’t notice the day by day growth and change and experiences that make us who we are in any given moment. The actors, and the characters they portray, share these vulnerabilities that reflect and inform the intricacies of our humanity.”
Plays began with “Watermelon Boats,” which had four seperate scenes, one after each short play. It was the story of two girls and depicted them from time to time as they grew from children to adults.
Through conversation with each other on the same bridge each time they told the story of their struggles and growth as they maintained their life-long friendship.
Topics discussed were high school, pregnency scares, college and more.
Following were short plays “Three guys and a Brenda,” in which female actors performed as male characters, “Bondage,” which tackled the issues of racial stereotypes, “Medea,” which discussed life unexpected and “Come and Go,” which was one of the more surprising performances showcasing three friends at life’s end.
“It was definitely different from anything that I’ve ever seen,” said Kayla Sorrells, sophomore pre-medical major. “But I liked it a lot.”
The performance ended in the same way it started, except this time with the three actors putting on their shoes in sync and walking off-stage.
“Our relationships intimately impact our unique sense of self, which is what makes them so terrifying, so heartbreaking and so rewarding,” read the Director’s note.
