First years either greatly enjoyed or were greatly put off by this year’s O Show, the joint theater production by all of the on-campus theater groups for New Student Orientation. As the first production of the year, the show introduces first years to the theater community at Georgetown and also announces the season’s shows for each of the theater groups.
At the 4:00 p.m. performance on Monday, the house was nearly packed, though there were easily as many actors on the stage as there were seats in the audience. As per tradition, the production was rife with cracks about NSO, the shallow friendships of the first few days at college and, of course, prods at popped collars. Other than those generalities, however, there was very little continuity.
Though the show is collaborative, according to Mask and Bauble publicist Reema Ghazi (MSB ‘08), each of the skits was written by a different person over the summer. They were cobbled together in the four days before the show, a fact that is actually given a disclaimer by Adam Aguirre (CAS ‘06) in the play itself. This was apparent in the lack of flow from scene to scene, jumping from two first years driving into a tornado, to a play on A Christmas Carol, to an infomercial about the benefits of being involved in theater. Style changed dramatically as the plays awkwardly transitioned.
That said, O Show is in no way meant to be a critical success; it is more of a social mixer for the theater community and an open-armed welcome to new students. In this it succeeded admirably. Many of the scenes were very clever, such as when board members of Mask and Bauble were introduced as the Von Trapp children are in The Sound of Music, and when the 2005-06 season was announced as if M&B was purchasing the shows from a furniture dealer of ill repute. This allowed a very small teaser of each play to be performed, while still preserving some semblance of a single act.
The short introductions of the new plays for this year left the audience with mixed expectations. The most promising plays looked to be the M&B productions of Shakespeare’s classic Much Ado about Nothing set in the roaring 1920’s, and Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things, a story exploring the complexities of male and female relationships. The productions involving Nomadic, such as Macchanal and The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek seemed somewhat inaccessible for the casual theater patron, but certainly sounded like worthy successors to unusual shows like last spring’s Summertime.
The actors were clearly having fun and their enthusiasm was contagious, judging by the positive rumble of the crowd after the show. Ian Fahey (CAS ‘07) gave admirable performances in several different scenes, most notably as the ghost of theater at Georgetown, and Kirsten Brudy (CAS ‘05) provided flamboyant nighthawk sound effects. Much flailing of limbs, impromptu dancing and loud shouting at unusual times gave new students an idea of some of the oddities of the theater community and its particular brand of humor. Some will undoubtedly be drawn to club theater as if in a trance, while others will likely run away screaming.
