Leveling Up!

"Leveling Up" by Deborah Zoe Laufer is very interesting play. It brings up question of what it means to have a real life for people of the millennial generation. Also it blurs the lines of reality and video games. it accomplishes all this through its main character Ian. he is told he does not have a real life even though he is a professional game. That is not considered to be real. He then gets a job operating drones. Now while he is doing almost the same tasks as when he is playing, there are major differences in the consequences. Ian's reality becomes infused with the game he is playing, making him unable to distinguish work from pleasure. The inability to relax is driving force behind the major conflict at the end. He is always at odds with one or more of the other characters because he cannot find a way to get out of work mode. His fragile mental state leads him to attack Jennie both virtually and in real life. 

The play has a great concept, and at times a good script. But, there are moments where it feels that Deborah just gave up on writing a scene and took and easy way out. The dialog gets bland and repetitive. Also you can tell the script was written by someone who did a lot of research on gamers, but was not a gamer herself. The lingo was right; it was just slightly off. It was just a little unsettling. Also her sentence structure at times could be a little strange. She ordered words in ways that people would not actually say.

         The play as a whole was very good. She could have spent a little more time fleshing out lines and a little more research on how gamers actually speak. With those little addition it would be an amazing play.

Jesus is a pot smoking commie

"Jesus Christ is a Communist" is a ten-minute play, written by Jason D. Martin. The play is about a father and son who are secluded from civilization because of Y2k. They have been hiding in the woods because they are scared the commies, liberals or the marijuana man is going to get them. They are the epitome of conservative. Jed is the one who suggested them moving away for the apocalypse. His son Elroy is scared that Jesus has come and taken everyone to heaven except them.

         When a third character, record to only as man, enters Jed and Elroy assume that he is a communist. The only thing that saves him is that he looks like Jesus. The father and son test the hiker to make sure he is Jesus. During a test the hiker gets away, but he leaves his weed behind. Upon seeing this the religious men that Jed and Elroy are, rationalize that means they Jesus wants them to get high. So they start using the weed like chewing tobacco.

                           Martin is really painting a horrible picture of the “redneck” stereotype. he shows them as uneducated, ignorant, and quick to have their opinion changed. They are shown to be ignorant when they thing that Y2K is going to happen and then again when they are so easily tricked by the hiker. They are displayed to be uneducated just in their word choice and the manner of their speak. It is hard to really get a full grasp of what they are saying. they are quick to change because when the hiker leaves his drugs behind, they are quick to go against their own morals if told to by a heavenly power.

Da Birds by Aristophanes

"The Birds" by Aristophanes with a modern spin on it by Gabriel Vega Weissman and Brain Reno was a joy to work on. Gabe and Brian took an old Greek comedy, which most audience members would not understand because it is full of references that even scholars do not know, and made it relatable to college students. Also some of the things that ancient Greeks laughed at, we do not find funny anymore. When this was the case, Gabe and Brian updated and found an analogous substitute. The father beater was changed into the public deficator. The leader of the birds Tereus the Hoope was a man who rapped and cut out his wife's sisters tongue. In today's society that is not something that is okay. Instead Gabe and Brian changed him into Bill Clinton a dignified man with a shameful past. We all snicker at him and joke. Brian and Gabe took out all the excessive violence and vulgarity and made it comedic for modern day. They added characters that the everyday person would know such as Spock, Darth Vader, and J.J. Abrams.  Overall Brain and Gabe showed that they had a good grasp on both the original material and on pop culture. They brought that knowledge together in a play that made both humans and birds laugh.

"Mr.Icky" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Mr. Icky” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a play that does not make much sense. There is a very lose plot that at times is hard to follow. Mr. Icky is a hundred-year-old arsonist. We never see him set anything on fire during the play, but he has an interaction with Peter where he admits that in prison he became a bigger criminal. He also had a daughter, Ulsa, who went to Lunnon (London) to be a typewriter. With the way this play was going I would not have been surprised if she actually transformed into a typewriter. But she did not because we see her later when her fiancé Divine follows her home after they break up due to an argument about who would win in a fight. When they come to a conclusion to the debate they decide to get married again. That is the first child to leave Mr. Icky.

         His son Charles then comes out wearing a rope and anchor around his neck. He decided to go out to sea, making him the second child to leave Mr. Icky. The script then says dozen of Mr. Icky’s children come out. This 100-year-old man who was in prison for years has several dozen kids. His children all decide to leave so Mr. Icky is all alone. The curtains open and close a few times and Peter is left standing there with a moth ball. Peter is having euphoric reactions to the moth ball, so he gives it Mr. Icky as a present in the end.

         Although the plot makes no sense, the way it is written is very cool. Fitzgerald leaves places for the people performing the show to add in jokes.  Also his stage directions are very specific. An example is when he describes Divine’s stride as “He advances toward her with the graceful, even stride that made him captain of the striding team at Cambridge.” Even though I do not think a striding team is a thing, I understood what Fitzgerald was trying to say. My favorite part about the way he wrote it was at the end he says could end here or it can go on forever. There is no real structure. This is not a play that has very strict rules or is realistic at all. In my opinion it was a confusing, but fun read.