by Rhiannon Fullerton and Taylor Nadauld
The NIC Drama Department unveiled their production of Neil LaBute’s, “The Shape of Things” Thursday night to a cozy crowd.
The production featured many edgy, nontraditional elements including the placement of audience seating – having the audience sit on the stage where the cast performed- some adult content, and the use of “liquid scenery” – a mash-up of traditional staging techniques and multimedia elements.
“This play uses the layering of a lot more technical elements, which is a lot different than anything I’ve done here before,” said lead actress Lindsay Teeter.
From an audience members’ perspective, the experience is intimate and engaging. Cast members act among audience members without breaking the fourth wall.
“When you read the play it’s a very intimate experience. It feels like you’re right in the middle of these people’s emotional lives,” said Guest Director Scott Doughty. “In order to honor that experience, we talked about how do we make it feel like we’re sitting right there with them. One of the goals we set out to do is really try to involve the audience in a much more immediate way.”
The entire cast is made up of only four students and one understudy. Characters feel more like friends than fiction by the end of the show.
“You learn to trust each other,” said Teeter of working with a small cast.
Audience members were warned before the play started that it is intended for mature audiences only, due to “strong sexual scenes” and “graphic language”. The play did feature scenes involving sexual encounters, with language scattered throughout. Cast and audience members didn’t seem to mind. Prevalent themes in the show included student relationships, college life, motivations behind seemingly good intentions, and the definition of “art” in general.
“This show is a lot more contemporary than what NIC normally does,” said cast member, Diana Bailey, “which is really nice.”
The play is performed with a lot of creative control from the actors’ own interpretations. Students were provided a script, but there is nothing defining the characters other than the way the actors choose to portray them.
“It was awesome,” said audience member, Shari Thomas. “It was very well acted. It just was very smooth; no glitches or anything like that, and I thought the lead couple was just amazing.”
The play is very accessible to everyone because it does not use heightened language.
“You don’t have to be a ‘theater person’ to appreciate this,” said Cole Durbin, the play’s male lead.
The actors had audience members fully engaged from beginning to end. There was plenty of laughter, and equal amounts of shock at the show’s many twists and turns.
“It forces you to think very hard on your view on relationships on art, on ethics; it’s a really unique experience,” said Doughty. “The characters are not good or bad, just present and real.”
“The Shape of Things” is being performed on Oct. 30, 31 and Nov. 1 at 7:30 p.m. in the Boswell Hall Schuler Performing Arts Center.
