 "Photo: Adam Jungwirth")
Nearly 400 people took to the UW-Oshkosh Fredric March Theatre March 11-13 to see three one-act plays: “Throwing Smoke,” “Slow Brick on a Still Day” and “Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead.”
All three plays were chosen by student directors Martin Prevost and Adam Boucher after being chosen by the theater department last May to direct and design their own plays for the yearly appearance of the student-directed one acts.
“This is an opportunity for students to direct plays and help boost students’ morale and creates a good experience,” Mick Alderson, technical director for the theater department, said.
The Student One Acts give other students the chance to see the work of fellow classmates as well as work together to provide entertainment.
“Working with (Prevost) was fun,” actor Patrick McCann, a freshman and double major in theater and radio-TV-film, said. “He really let me explore … and he put together a cast with terrific chemistry.”
McCann, who played Beethoven in “Dog Sees God,” said it was a highly dramatized play, but casts of all the shows got along well, which showed in some great performances.
“Like any other theater, this play is a collaborative process,” actor Sam Spees, a senior art and theater major, said. “I enjoyed working with fellow students in their new positions.”
Spees, who played Charlie Brown in “Dog Sees God,” said it was a great experience being involved in a show with an intimate setting even though it was a controversial play.
Chair of the theater department and scene designer Roy Hoglund said “Dog Sees God” was meant to be edgy.
“‘Dog’ is contemporary and is about sex, drugs and homosexuals,” Hoglund said. “It’s a comedy, but a dark comedy. People were laughing at funny moments, but (there) were truly tragic messages.”
In “Dog Sees God” the characters of the Peanuts comic strip are 10 years older and are in high school dealing with stereotypical drama that many high schoolers are going through today.
Charlie Brown develops a homosexual relationship with Beethoven, who is a piano player that later commits suicide due to another character being furious with him and breaking his hands.
“I went through a lot of what Beethoven goes through in the play in both middle school and high school,” McCann said. “He’s a weary soul, but he was still strong in the sense that he sticks to who he is as a person, which helps him come out of his shell and, ultimately, take a stand against the oppressions he’s constantly been faced with.”
Other characters involve Linus, who smokes pot, and Lucy, who sets fire to a girl’s hair, is put into a juvenile center and is given lithium for her unwillingness to admit to her crime.
“Charlie was confused, like always, and was troubled over the death of his dog,” Hoglund said. “With Beethoven’s death, the play ended on a dark moment because Charlie was troubled with Beethoven’s death.”
Tragedy may have been the main point of the play, but audiences loved the humor that was brought to the stage.
“I loved ‘Dog,’” April Faulks, a senior theater major, said. “It was not only funny, but it made fun of stereotypes while still putting out a strong message.”
Faulks, who worked on the costumes for all three plays, said it was great seeing friends put on a good show individually as well as collaboratively.
“Dog Sees God” was chosen by Prevost due to its strong messages that people can relate to and its iconic characters.
“This play spoke to me,” Prevost said. “It was challenging to all, but was an awesome experience. It was nice to see work on stage that I had a part in, thanks to the awesome theater department.”
Boucher, also chosen by the theater department to direct, chose “Throwing Smoke” and “Slow Brick on a Still Day.” Though shorter than “Dog Sees God,” both still hold messages that are important to today’s world.
“‘Slow Brick on a Still Day’ was funny, but had quite a strange angle to it,” Hoglund said. “It was targeted towards female contemporary writers.”
In the play, a professor critiques Claudia’s (a female graduate student) work, saying it’s not good enough because it had no mention of the male gender.
So he makes a proposal: if she can strike him out with a Nerf ball, he’ll give her a passing grade.
After two strikes, the student doesn’t see the point of pitching to an old professor.
Enraged, she refused to pitch the last ball.
“Playing Claudia was a great experience,” actress Liz Berndt said. “On a personal level, I intended to go to graduate school so I could easily relate to her and her anxiety to get a passing grade and finish school.”
“Throwing Smoke,” Boucher’s other directed play, is a comedic play located in a baseball team’s dugout. Due to a losing record, one by one the players quit.
“It was funny when this team started losing and just up and left,” Hoglund said. “What would happen if that was to happen in real life? It was just funny.”
According to Alderson, students did well overall, but like most students, procrastination was a big piece of the plays.
“They were very well done,” Alderson said. “I’ve seen much worse and it’s obvious they are students, but these students show great promise.”
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