MU Drama’s Debs Festival Roundup One

I, and several other lovely members of Silver Hand Journal’s editorial board, were given press access to the Drama Society’s debutante (Debs) festival on 19 November. Each play was performed by a set of first-time actors, written and directed by complete newcomers. Reviews of three of the plays – You’ll Never Suffer Alone, Are You Single? and No Surprises – can be found below.

You’ll Never Suffer Alone

Written and directed by Cyan Doyle

“Welcome in! We are so happy to see you! You won’t regret paying the price to join us. This is a safe space, we’re going to help you.”

The first play of the night, You’ll Never Suffer Alone, opens in a minimally dressed and still waiting room, like the kind we’ve spent far too long in as kids. However, any emptiness in this space is soon overwhelmed when the obnoxiously colourful clientele attempt even the lightest conversation with one another.

You’ll Never Suffer Alone is comic narrative created by its dramatis personae. The sweary, antagonistic personalities of the ‘therapy group’ are like a loose alliance of megalomaniacs, ready to slash one another’s throats at the slightest provocation. Actor Noah Swaine, playing a salesman with a booming presence and geographically untraceable Southern accent, is particularly effective at selling this constant state of tentativeness held by all the clientele. Swaine also won the best supporting actor accolade at the Drama Society’s Debs & One Acts Awards for his performance.

August, a hapless interloper in events, is by far the most amiable and likeable character present. She rambles at length about her bus journey, which the play frequently laughs at” her expense over, but as any commuting student could tell you it makes her by far the most empathetic figure present. Compared to the aforementioned megalomaniacs, she’s obscenely pleasant and amiable, insofar that her portrayal as butt of the joke seems to be reflective of the group’s ire at her for not being ‘in’ with them and for disturbing their rituals.

The extravagant deviances of the clientele coalesces into an incredibly toxic space – literally, in this case, with the group therapy room. When switching scenes to the therapy room, You’ll Never Suffer Alone, like any student production worth its salt, has its actors (who may also be stagehands) rearrange the set dressing when changing settings. By having the actors do this, the play coyly echoes how each character constructs an obscene environment with their experiences and misdeeds. As the audience and August learn, the ‘therapy group’ is in fact a doomsday cult – a place for people to absolve themselves of their bizarre sins before the Rapture.

Although this revelation is not heavily telegraphed, it does not need to be. The present cast accept it as a normality to go unacknowledged, just as they reject August for disturbing that normalcy. There’s a series of comedic monologues where they each ‘confess’ to their backstories, with some being more effective than others. A spotlight fell on Swaine as his character recalled elicit dealings in plastic surgery, and his wife’s exploding lip fillers, and I somewhat wish the same was done for all the cast to emphasise the earnestness with which they treat their similar circumstances.

Regardless, Doyle’s play is just as outrageous as its characters, all of whom enrich the most energetic start to the evening’s shows possible.

Are You Single?

Written and directed by Heather Loftus

“Jeremy, a nobody working in a dull accountancy job, attends a party his childhood friend, Ted, hosts  to congratulate him on his promotion. His plans to avoid speaking to anyone and bail early are cast aside when he meets a friend from school. The two attempt (and fail) to make conversation while their inner thoughts scream at them to make a real human connection.”

In an embarrassing lapse of any journalistic instinct, I confess that I did not read the above synopsis for Are You Single?, despite it being readily available in the kindly-provided programme on my lap. Its central premise, with Dominik Lazarek shadowing Jeremy (Saoirse McDermott) as the embodiment of his inner thoughts, was revealed instead by suggestions and implications within the play itself.

However, said suggestions and implications were so effective that I almost wish the premise had been excluded from the synopsis entirely. Production flourishes, like having Lazarek and McDermott dressed in near-identical outfits, in-tandem with dialogue from the inner psyches always using the pronoun ‘we’ and referring to things collectively, clue us in. Aspects of production which are typically separate in student theatre synchronise simply, but imaginatively to enrich the framing device.

Similarly, these aspects of theatre will align again to break the play’s established rules in inventive ways. The inner psyches of Jeremy and his old school friend will occasionally speak to one another despite being tethered to their respective human bodies, making use of the minimally dressed and spacious stage. Are You Single?, because of its insular and withdrawn framing device, ends up being delightfully subversive. Dire news is delivered plainly and stiltedly; nobody at the party seems to express any emotion, let alone to be enjoying themselves. As exemplified when offstage, the unseen guest Greg suddenly requires an ambulance, the party is viewed near-exclusively through Jeremy’s hyperfocused impression of events insofar that we hardly know what’s going on.

With this considered, one may ask why we are presented with embodiments of inner thoughts more broadly, and not embodiments of insecurities and self-doubt. Beside the play’s conclusion, when Jeremy and his old friend simultaneously ask one another, “Are you single?”, the inner psyches are consistently characterised as negative. Lazarek plays this excellently, teetering on Malcolm Tucker at points, but one may want the psyches to reflect other aspects of thought alongside insecurity; e.g., curiosity, by asking “Is Greg okay?”

Otherwise, Are You Single? excels at using all aspects of theatrical production available to its advantage, setting a tremendous precedent for future Drama Society productions and Loftus’ next work.

No Surprises

Written and directed by Luca Devine

“Apollo is struggling with the philosophical question of ‘Do we really mean anything?’ while he takes time to be present with his friends, connect with old friends and just go to a birthday party with everyone like he used to. Hopefully the night ends well for him.”

We at Silver Hand Journal were very fortunate to speak with Devine about No Surprises before the night’s shows began. We at Silver Hand Journal are also far too caught up in music for our own good, and to not recognise the title. In conversation with our junior editor Sam Walker, Devine drew a line between the play and the track from Radiohead’s OK Computer for its “sad and slow,” “chill and relaxed” feel. The compulsion to write the play apparently came from a train journey, during “really rainy, awful weather,” followed by an hour’s walk.

Devine classified the play as a “tragedy,” a genre worn on the play’s sleeve. Lead protagonist Apollo (Cain Guilfoyle-Shorte) is the only character with a name outside of modern convention, instantly and irrevocably isolating him from the rest of the cast. Devine describes him as “really kind,” but he frequently “lashes out at the people he’s closest to” – the DNA of this decision can be traced to Enda Walsh’s Chatroom, according to Devine. All of the characters in the play “find a lot of importance within their friends,” although in Apollo’s case, the importance he places on those closest to him leads him to internalise a great deal of frustration, as exemplified when a birthday card is met with an apathetic response.

No Surprises gives us insights into narrative events taking place before those of the play, e.g. Apollo being bullied at school, but these are fleeting. The birthday card, as a dramatic symbol, feels like the straw that breaks the camel’s back after a long journey of decline – the audience enter in media res of an extended breakdown. Guilfoyle-Shorte’s performance also indicates this, as he puts a strained gusto into every line, wheezily yelling in desperation to be heard by an audience other than the friends he feels he can’t speak to.

Aria Kavanagh’s Mallory levels with him in a scene at the birthday party staged with dignity and an air of seclusion, but if there was a time at which Apollo would reciprocate, it’s long since passed. Devine, who told us that his first foray into the Drama Society was performing in last academic year’s Beautiful Liars, shows his passion for acting through his directing in moments like these, with the lighting and backdrop giving the characters a floor to meet one another.

Like Are You Single?, No Surprises spends a great deal of time within its lead’s head, albeit it could benefit from being within Apollo’s point of view. His friends narrate a great deal of his experiences in a retroactive fashion, after he dies at the play’s end; implicitly by suicide. Whilst the intent becomes clear upon Apollo’s death – with the cast reminiscing about him with Radiohead’s No Surprises in the background – it may have been more effective to have him narrate his own thoughts throughout the play, so to accentuate just how insular he has become. This can be furthered when Apollo’s friends give their respective monologues, by having them tell an entirely parallel narrative divorced from what we see onstage.

No Surprises still does an exceptional job at isolating its lead, making the question in its synopsis seem like an angsty conclusion to a long psychosis, instead of a problem to solve. I eagerly anticipate Devine’s next play; however tragic it may be.

Many thanks again to the Drama Society for the courtesy of inviting us to the event. You can find them @mu_drama on Instagram, and follow them for updates on new performances!