For many, the words “student-written theater” may evoke thoughts of painful clichés rather than dramatic genius. This year’s Donn B. Murphy One Acts Festival features the winner of Mask & Bauble’s annual playwriting contest, “Witness,” by Miranda Hall (COL ’11). Never mind clichés—calling Ms. Hall’s work “good” is a serious understatement.
After the death of his beloved wife, Meg, Harold (Jamie Scott, COL ’11) must learn to live without her and raise his young daughter, Lyla (Victoria Glock-Molloy COL ’11), himself. Harold plants two young hydrangeas and visits them for 11 years with letters written to Meg, testimony to a love that refuses to let go.
The play explores the fundamentally human experiences of loss and remembrance in unconventional ways. It quite literally includes a voice of wisdom, and the flowers are in fact characters, played by Sarah Quehrn (COL ’12) and Kate Stonehill (SFS ’12), who delicately balance levity and solemnity.
“Witness” hits the stage a year after it was originally submitted. Though director Sean Sullinger (MSB ’10) is “almost certain that none of the original lines are the same,” the play stays true to the motifs of Hall’s original work. As such, the performance clearly reflects the hard work of the many students involved. Rich with metaphor and deftly drawn imagery, the dialogue verges on poetic. Everyday objects like coffee and socks are imbued with meaning, giving the play a feeling of hyper-reality.
As Lyla begins to grow up, she tries to find a place for her mother in her life. Harold is still painfully faithful to the memory of his wife, and the flowers are themselves dying, suffering under the weight of the letters and memories they carry. Lyla’s struggle is compelling, and the flowers are a perfect complement to the piece, but ultimately Jamie Scott’s performance as the heartbroken Harold takes the play to another level. In one of the most mesmerizing and poignant scenes, he clutches the sheets that his wife once loved and agonizingly laments that they now smell like cardboard.
The play’s heavy reliance on metaphor and symbols could easily have weighed the production down, but Hall’s writing is exceptional and Sullinger does a masterful job of translating it to the stage. Just as one character says, “You don’t need to bring much when what you need is where you’re traveling to,” the minimalist set perfectly complements the performance. Unencumbered by the physical presence of objects, its simplicity allows the production to speak for itself and weave its themes of memory, loss, and love without distraction.
In addition to “Witness,” the Donn B. Murphy One Acts Festival also stages a handful of other student-written works, including “Feet,” a radio play written by Tom Kelley (COL ’11). Performed in collaboration with WGTB Georgetown Radio, the piece features a father who peddles weed, a daughter with a foot fetish, and a son who has just returned from a mental hospital. With a few props and some sardonic wit, they explore the elusiveness of normalcy.
The Donn B. Murphy One Acts Festival runs February 25 through 28 at 8:00 p.m. and March 1 at 4 p.m. at the Devine Studio Theater in the Davis Center for Performing Arts. Visit www.performingarts.georgetown.edu for more information.
