An exploration of social restrictions - highlighting the disparity societal rules create between who one is and who one wants to be - is central to three plays written by graduate students appearing in the annual New Plays Festival, which runs Wednesday through Sunday at the McCormack Family Theater.
The playwrights - Andrew Bragen, Molly Rice and Samuel Marks - are second-year Master of Fine Arts candidates in playwriting in the literary arts graduate program. They developed their work under Pulitzer Prize-winning Professor of English Paula Vogel.
Bragen's "Food Porn," directed by George Broadwater GS, is set in Columbus, Ohio, and features an aspiring gourmet chef who prepares a small dinner party at home for five guests. One of these guests is her younger brother, who has just returned from fighting in Iraq.
Bragen said all five characters' relationships with food are unique and complex and that he used food as "a way into dealing with familial relationships."
The main character, for example, is meant to be "a divided person, act(ing) as if everything is always OK, striving to be something else," Bragen said. "She has a complicated relationship to food, having grown up eating processed foods and is now trying to change," he explained.
Her somewhat dishonest relationship with food also shows up in her relationships with others, particularly in the denial of the problems that exist between her and her husband, Bragen said.
The play mixes references to gourmet food and high-end cuisine with the Iraq war and global politics, creating a bouillabaisse of questions about American culture, he said.
Mixing the idea of food with war may seem to be a farfetched connection, but this perceived disconnect is something Bragen attempted to highlight in his play.
"I looked at pictures in Gourmet magazine and processed food, all designed with this pornographic feel," he said, which served as the inspiration for the play's name.
The work "comes out of an interest with this and the literal effect of disconnect" from looking at "pictures of men at war and soldiers dying," he said.
In the play, consumption is explored both on a personal level through the struggles of the play's individual characters and on a global level in the context of the current war in Iraq. The discussion of consumption is an attempt to illuminate the link between industrial production and global affairs, he said. "Food Porn" will appear on Wednesday at 8 p.m. and again on Saturday at 8 p.m.
Rice's "Don't Stop," directed by Birgitta Victorson GS, will be performed Thursday evening at 8 p.m. and again on Sunday at 3 p.m.
The play combines elements of Spain's Golden Age with female sexuality to tell a story about a high school girl embodying the sexuality of Don Juan, the well-known seducer in Spanish literature, Rice said.
"Don't Stop" is about "how people love and how we find out what turns us on and how that changes the shape of our identity," Rice explained. "I was curious about the two opposing forces of drive and destruction," she said.
This dichotomy is epitomized by the play's main character, who possesses tendencies of both extreme sexual desire and violence, she said.
While the play occurs in a contemporary setting, it reflects upon the tensions of 17th-century Spain, including the presence of a number of gender-based laws, such as the segregation of men and women at the theatre. In addition to the allusion to Don Juan, the play utilizes aspects of Spain's Golden Age literature and drama, for example, in the layering of narrative that extends beyond the actions on stage, she said.
In contrast to 17th-century Spain's reputation for silencing the sexual urges of women, Rice's play is "NC-17 graphic," she said. It includes, for example, a monologue about anal sex.
"The play is a lot of different pieces," Rice said. It is "like a collage with narrative" that explores gender, sexual desire and love.
Marks' "The Joke" is about two stand-up comedians and explores how men compete for success and how they compete over women, Marks explained.
The two comedians communicate only through their jokes throughout the play, Marks said.
"It works on two levels," Marks explained, referring not only to the dialogue but the play's format and setting.
As the play progresses, so does the relationship between the characters, Marks said.
The setting begins as two distinct locations - onstage and offstage - but "then becomes increasingly the same area with little differentiation," Marks said. This convergence is intended to reflect the blurring of the line between the characters' work lives and relationship with one another. "The Joke" will be shown Friday night at 8 p.m. and again on Saturday at 2 p.m.
