Rumor has it that there are merely two degrees of separation between each of the 5,000-plus students that make up the Tufts undergraduate community. Though there is no logical way to officially validate this notion, 14 of these students connected at a level of Six Degrees of Separation in the Balch Arena Theater this weekend, marking the opening of a two-weekend run of the gracefully intense play by John Guare.
The Drama Department tends to tackle complex works, and Six Degrees is no exception. Like this past winter's Playboy of the Western World, the core of the play is by no means easy to present or to understand. But under the direction of Luke Jorgenson, the cast members of Six Degrees were able to successfully make sense of the many layers of confusing plot twists - this, in itself is enough reason to commend them all on outstanding performances.
The underlying story is fairly simple: The mysterious Paul (Jeff Brea) individually encounters a series of families - all, of course, unknowingly connected by six degrees - and convinces them that he goes to an Ivy League college with their children and that he is the son of actor Sidney Poitier. By connecting the lies of the upper crust Ouisa and Flan (senior Allison Clear and sophomore Graham Outerbridge), starving artists Elizabeth and Rick (senior Rachel Jablin freshman David Green), and everything in between, we slowly begin to see just how closely everyone on this planet is connected.
While there is no set chronology of events - everything seems to happen at overlapping intervals - the many pieces come together to teach an important lesson of maintaining individuality in a world largely focused on societal acceptance and conformity. Guare helps the audience to relate to this idea by weaving easily identifiable icons of pop cultural icons into the script: Remember your high school English class? That's there, with Paul's frequent references to Holden Caufield's struggles in Catcher in the Rye. What about seeing your first Broadway show? That's there too. Paul offers some of the cast members a role in a film remake of Cats, a blatant nod to the fact that perhaps even the longest-running musical in Broadway history gained its popularity through word of mouth rather than artistic merits.
The actors effectively get these messages across by working cohesively as an ensemble -as they should for a play of this nature. No one took complete control over the spotlight. There were, however, a few standout performances: It is very easy to hate Ouisa, for example, but Clear uses her natural stage presence to her advantage and manages to garner sympathy from the audience - particularly towards the end of the play. Jablin brought forth Elizabeth's innocence without being overly syrupy, and her naivet?© seemed genuine. Nathaniel Seger was right on target as Doug, the rebellious son of Josh Bauml's stereotypical Jewish Dr. Fine (which was also a very accurate performance). And while some of Brea's early long stretches of dialogue dragged, his character seemed to click midway through the play, making for an eerily touching finish.
One of the nicest thing about this production is that Jorgenson managed to sidestep the most common problem that arises when mounting a play with a large cast in the Arena: Oftentimes there are so many actors onstage at once that it is difficult to keep track of individual identities and subplots without knowing beforehand either the play or at least some of the performers. But in Six Degrees, each actor portrays his or her character with such defined style that it is impossible to confuse even which of the four college-aged characters belonged to which set of parents.
This can be partially attributed to the tastefully designed set, which made for one of the simplest creations to hit the Arena in recent years. It works perfectly to accent the tangled nature of the story, utilizing neutral tones to mirror society's ambivalence.
And as this unfolds, it brings with it many questions: Where do we fit within this structure? How can we avoid being victims? And, damnit, why does society place so much importance on trivialities such as the monetary value of paintings rather than their artistic merits or the prestige of attending an Ivy League school as opposed to the importance of becoming educated.
Most of these questions remain unanswered, and the fact that the Tufts actors did not try to force false interpretations is precisely what makes this production of Six Degreesof Separation work as an accurate depiction of the downfalls of society.
