Premature Christmas melodies may have already infested our radio stations, and mistletoe may be starting to lurk over our heads.
For the next two weekends, however, Wendell Theater Group, a student-run theater company, takes us back a month to Halloween, a holiday that haunts with piercing screams instead of jolly jingles and spontaneous stabbings instead of unprecedented kisses.
Jeffrey Jones' absurdist play Seventy Scenes of Halloween tells the story of a troubled married couple, Jeff and Joan, played by sophomores Matthew Colabrese and Claire Florian. No longer able to communicate and paralyzed by their boredom, they become buried under their misery on the most appropriate of evenings.
Seventy Scenes is, literally, 70 short, fast-paced scenes in which the audience gets insight into the dark comedy of a failing marriage.
Yet in the midst of what appears to be a domestic drama, a witch, a beast and several ghosts creep into the action, adding an element of absurdity.
Sophomores Matthew Patrick and Becky Sweren boldly tackle the roles of the Beast and the Witch-two very strange characters.
"It is a really hard play to understand," Patrick said. "My character is more of a symbolic figure. The biggest challenge is conveying what it means to an audience."
While Seventy Scenes is somewhat confusing, director Russell Hainline, a senior, explained that the absurdity proves to trick and treat.
"As an absolutely wonderful comedy-drama-horror-romance, there were always layers to uncover," Hainline said. "I hope that people come in with an open mind and are ready to think."
Thinking may be a plus, but Sweren said that isn't the ultimate goal of the play.
"In the end, people should be entertained," he said.
Seventy Scenes of Halloween will be showing at Brody Theater on East Campus Dec. 1, 2 and 7-9 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $5.
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