During their first year at school, college freshmen across the country, be they at Harvey Mudd or Harvard, University of Southern California or South Hall share similar experiences. The "what's your name/where are you from" syndrome, ubiquitous dry erase boards, and the infamous Freshman 15 weight gain unite the incoming classes, ushering them into the culture that can be overarchingly described as "college life."
"The Insect Play," which opens tonight, deals with a different brand of universality. It does, however, share a characteristic with the aforementioned phenomena: its participants, from actors to stage manager to costume designers, are all freshmen.
This year's incarnation of the Pen, Paint, and Pretzels Freshman Show explores human traits through a creepy-crawly cast of characters. Each actor in the ensemble cast (save one actress who plays a human) portrays many insect varieties throughout the production.
At the start of the play, said human, the Tramp (Laura Gerhardt) joins the insect world in what can be interpreted as a dream. The remainder of the play takes place in the insects' own space as the Tramp interacts with anthropomorphized beetles, butterflies and bugs.
Through these bugs, each of which exemplify various aspects of humanity, the show works on multiple levels to explore human imperfection and, as actor Benjamin Meller put it, makes the audience think about "what's important in life."
Director Brendan Shea chose the play because he sees it as a piece all audience members can relate to. "The play is not a politically active piece, and it doesn't speak to any specific issue that alienates anyone," he said.
Rather, Shea sees "The Insect Play" as a "universal allegory that uses the insects beneath our feet to exemplify grossness and savage vices. The things it criticizes are not specific to a group of people or a political doctrine; it speaks to something we all have experienced in humanity."
Each of these flaws is explored through the different insect varieties. An "Insect Play" cheat sheet would reveal that the butterflies in the play are only concerned with sex, the crickets are too idealistic, and the ants are quick to battle and slow to think independently.
As for style, in the initial stages of the show Shea described the production to his designers as "Max Ernst meets Disney-a surrealist brushstroke superimposed over 'A Bug's Life.'"
Indeed, nothing about the play has been ordinary. During auditions, actor-hopefuls were asked to bring in any piece they wanted. After reading it through once, Shea asked the participant to embody a bug in movement and voice and read it once more. Callbacks couldn't be seen from this side of normal, as participants all banded together to form a giant bug and navigate the space they were in.
Aside from the shared strangeness of personifying bugs, those involved in the Freshman Show have also had the unique experience of starting out their Tufts theater careers with fellow Balch Arena neophytes. "It's great to know that everyone here is a first-year student," said Meller.
As in the tradition of the Freshman Play, the actors are overseen by an upperclassmen director (junior Shea), and an experienced mentor oversees each member of the crew. Craig Kaufman, the play's set designer, benefited from the guidance of two mentors - senior Matt Saide and faculty designer Ted Simpson. Saide and Simpson "helped me develop the set into what it is right now and looked at my sketches," said Kaufman. "It's been a great jumping off experience."
Designing "The Insect Play" proved to be a particular challenge because of what Shea describes as the "aesthetic spectacle" surrounding the show.
"The play is notoriously difficult to pull off successfully because of the allegorical, episodic nature," said Shea. "It's relatively obscure and not often done in America because it has the reputation of not being done right."
To combat this, Shea worked with what he found to be a highly talented pool of actors in various theater techniques, most notably biomechanics. Gerhardt describes the technique as "focusing on performance as opposed to realism," thus creating the surrealistic experience Shea envisioned.
This evening, Shea hopes to parlay this stylistic work-shopping and five weeks of hard work by cast and crew into what he says will be the "freshman show to end all freshman shows."
