The Hamilton Theatre department completed its run of
TRAGEDY: A tragedy
by Will Eno last weekend. The play had eight performances between Thursday, Nov. 7, Saturday, Nov. 9, Wednesday, Nov. 13, and Saturday, Nov. 16 at 7:30 p.m. in the Romano Theatre, Kennedy Center for Theatre and the Studio Arts. Directed by Professor Craig Lattrell of the Theatre Department, the play featured set design by Sara Walsh and lighting and projection by Jeff Larson.
I watched
TRAGEDY: a tragedy
on Saturday, Nov. 13 at 2:00 pm and left the Romano Theatre thinking about what felt like everything. The play reflects on the never-ending news about being on the brink of impending doom: the sun has set over America for the night, and nobody is quite sure if it will rise the next morning.
The production follows the back and forth between news correspondents. The play begins on a monitor in front of the audience, featuring Frank (Will Benthem de Grave ’20), a charming anchor with an exaggerated cadence to his voice, in the studio. The scene quickly shifts to show Frank in person, alone in the stifling studio and reporting live from his desk. He is determined to maintain a façade of coolness as the world is falling apart just outside the door. Michael the legal advisor, played by Angelique Archer ’20, picks up pieces of The Governor’s shady correspondence, struggling with the realization that the head of state has abandoned his people. Mitchell Greene ’22 played John in the Field, a reporter that reverts back to his childhood fears and memories as he is left alone in the dark, afraid that he is dying of heartworm. Finally, Constance at the House, played exceptionally by Jojo Rinehart-Jones ’20, struggles to ground herself in reality, reporting on random things she comes across like a hot air balloon, a stray horse she hits with a rock, and a damp, anonymous love letter that she believes is the most beautiful thing she has ever read.
The correspondents end each of their monologues with “Frank?” or “Back to you, Frank,” striving to maintain the sense of order that has been lost in their fear. Yet each of their speeches are deeply poetic, with language as rich as a Shakespearean sonnet. It is as if impending doom brings about an urgency to seize the beauty of language, clutching to the remains of humanity. While on a few occasions it felt like their acting was more Shakespearean than contemporary theatre, the actors still expressed their character’s authentic truth. I was amazed by the actors’ portrayals of such distinct characters on the verge of catastrophe: their ability to unearth surreal traumas, guilts, fears, and desires was truly moving.
One of the most unique parts of the show is the “movers” (Jack Clark ’21, Lily Delle-Levine ’21, Danielle Hirsch ’21, Ben Leit ’22, and Cole Wright-Schaner ’23), whose silhouettes move behind the scrim, lifting each other and forming shapes to reflect the words of the reporters. Sometimes the movers feel tangential, as if their movements haven’t been choreographed in coordination with the main action. At critical times, however, they add a layer of theatricality and dynamism to the play. My favorite part of the movement was the “milk ballet,” in which the movers come to Frank in a trance, hand him a glass of milk, then take it away in a four-minute long sequence of repetition. In that moment, the play enters a dreamscape that symbolizes Frank’s contemplation of his self versus what his viewers and coworkers imagine him to be.
The play had been advertised as “hilarious,” so entering the theatre, I was expecting moments of guaranteed laughter. In this respect, I was disappointed. The play starts off seriously, then nears but never quite reaches humor in the middle, before falling back to solemnity, a progression that feels underdeveloped. It is unclear whether the cause was the script or the direction, but most of my laughs felt like lip service to the misleading advertisement, as if I was supposed to laugh at moments that were just sad. The play wasn’t very comical — preposterous, yes; striking, yes; moving, yes. But not “hilarious.”
One aspect of the play that deserves special appreciation is the set design by Sara Walsh and Jeff Larson. Professor of Theatre Sara Walsh designed the set with an array of platforms, creating four distinct settings for each of the reporters and a space for the movers behind the scrim. The set ably lent itself to the illusion of newscaster cycle, in which the actors could speak to each other not three feet away but would never make eye contact, always gazing into the camera.
Lastly, the lighting, sound, and projection design by Theatre Faculty member Jeff Larson took the cake. At times, the studio would experience “malfunctions” or technical difficulties that were represented by static and strobe lights (this made a real malfunction of the projector on Saturday look intentional). Throughout the entire play, a montage also played on three screens behind the actors. It showed dozens of silent clips of the world before the assumed disaster — children, dogs, goldfish, nature, smiling faces, things in the nighttime and daytime — all in a constant stream of images. It felt like how your life flashes before your eyes when you die: appropriate, since for those in the play, the world could end at any moment. Bright and ever-changing, the projections were overwhelming but never a major distraction. They often reflected images of things that the actors had mentioned just moments before, which was a creative technical take on the text. Overall, the production design complemented the story well.
I genuinely enjoyed
TRAGEDY: a tragedy.
It moved me to think about how we take our lives for granted and what might we all become if we are forced to face the end of the world. The most interesting part of the script is the ambiguity: the sun has risen every day for the past couple billion years, so why shouldn’t it rise tomorrow? And yet, we cannot be sure. While some moments left something to be desired, each underwhelming aspect was compensated by another redeeming factor, and it all resulted in a great play. The theatre department, design team, stage crew, and cast should be proud of themselves for a job well done.
