The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 87, No. 17, Ed. 1 Friday, February 18, 2000 Page: 13 of 28
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THE RICK THKKSHKR
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18. 2000
13
heater
ROB GADDI/THRESHER
is he deals with his illness.
/ well to the audience. 1 think 1
gotten it without the synopsis.
• Brain is easily the best produc-
een at Rice. Even though it's not
musical in the world, it's intelli-
gnant, funny and entertaining,
as a happy ending — there's
lg to be said for that. Put that
with a cast as brilliant as this one
ector like Blair, and you've got
lg truly worth watching.
onologues]
senior Penelope Thomas in'"My
Was My Village" actually moved
i) easy task. And l>ovett freshman
liller managed in five minutes not
■onvince me that she was a desti-
ithern lesbian but also make me
be just like her in "The Little
Snorcher That Could."
st also congratulate Sid Richard-
lege senior Elizabeth Oehler on
le most thorough, vivid portrayals
ian and a professional dominatrix
seen even in real life.
of the show is solid. The set is
o last year's with the red, black
ite color scheme replaced with
it blue, and the tilted circular plat-
placed by a tilted trapezoid.
e's sizzle in the
is, but I'm not
d of losing an
to the power of
reeling.
direction has changed this year
muItifaceted to a more centered
"h, and they have included I-ovett
onnie ! ibbittsasan actor in "Six
)ld."
the script is still the same slightly
but very powerful work. Ensler
s too much narration of self-ex-
ry segments, but Ix>vett senior Car-
ls, who pla^fc Eve Ensler, does a
b of maintaining emotion and vari-
eep the audience interested.
r this year, I can't predict a future
Vagina Monologues at Ix>vett. But
ill feel like I'm looking in a mirror
watch some of the pieces, so I can
ly hope for many happy returns.
Players introduce 'Keely
and Du' to Rice audiences
Jared Hennessy
THRESHER STAFF
In the director's notes for the Rice
Players' latest production, director
John Mayer remarks that the "quality
of the acting roles" drew him to this
play rather than the opportunity to
make a statement about abortion. So
then it's no surprise that Keely and Du
works better as a study of the rela-
tionship between two women in a
uniquely demanding situation than as
an exploration of the ethics involving
abortion. Make no mistake, though —
the play's premise reiies on abortion
and its wide-ranging societal and per-
sonal implications.
10
Dot;
'keely and du'
' Rice Players
Rating: **** (out of five)
8 p.m. Feb. 17-19 and-23-26.
Tickets $4-$8.
For reservations,
call (713) 348-PLAY.
Keely (Sid Richardson College jun-
ior Mia Pfleging), a rape victim seek-
ing an abortion, is kidnapped by radi-
cal pro-life activists intending to im-
prison her until her' child might be
safely delivered. She shares her con-
finement with a nurse who calls her-
self Du (Brown College junior Maria
Collins). The plan, as outlined by ac-
tivist Walter (graduate student Carl
Huffman), involves guiding Keely with
anti-abortion propaganda and Bible
verses toward a happy union with the
unwanted child in order to serve as a
lesson and an example.
The play takes place almost en-
tirely in the basement where Du
watches over Keely, who remains
handcuffed to the bed that occupies
center stage. Though as bare as one
would expect a basement-turned-
prison would be, more could have
been done to accentuate the claus-
trophobia derived from living in these
conditions. With a relatively unfur-
nished set and minimal lighting ef-
fects, the play depends entirely on the
actors' ability to emote, and fortu-
nately the actors usually rise to the
challenge, of carrying this weight.
Keely's response ..to awakening
handcuffed to a bed in a basement is
unsurprisingly frenzied, but ashercap-
tivity'goes on, she runs through a
harrowing array of emotions in order
to cope with the fear, boredom and
anger inherent in being imprisoned
and used in a struggle in which she
wants no involvement. Pfleging gives
this role the desperation and rage
necessary to portray a woman who
has been snatched from difficult cir-
cumstances into wholly unimaginable
ones. Keely has suffered much both
on and off stage, and Pfleging navi-
gates these complexities well.
Du faces the confusion of a person
compelled to assist in criminal acts
by her drive to nurture. She justifies
her actions with the belief that her
role is to care for the mother and
child, physically and spiritually. Obvi-
ously, she cannot ignore her complic-
ity in the anguish caused to Keely by
imprisonment, so her round-the-clock
vigil forces her to re-examine her
concept of compassion.
After an lengthy attempt to keep
an informal but impersonal relation-
ship between nurse and patient,
Collins finally finds the opportunity to
add depth to her character when Du
can no longer merely dismiss Keely's
hysterics with a forced smile and
soothing murmurs. After several
scenes of hiding behind the idea that
a loving relationship with one's child
can cure anything, Du begins to soften
into a highly sympathetic character,
whose ideals have just parted ways
with reality.
Walter, on the other hand, does
not get much time to develop far
beyond the caricature of a Christian
Right extremist. He feels that by
bludgeoning Keely with pictures of
aborted fetuses, statistics and moral
lectures, he will convince her that
she needs someone else to make up
her mind about pregnancy. During his
visits, he drops into a pattern of
delivering cot^lescending sermons,
then exploding as Keely refuses to
immediately adopt his point of view.
Only one of his scenes gives him
the opportunity to express his pas-
sion for the cause in a manner other
than contemptuous self-righteous-
ness, but apart from this genuinely
desperate moment, Huffman never
gets the chance to flesh out this
basically two-dimensional role.
Walter, unlike Du, has the leisure of
time away from Keely to strengthen
his resolve, and so he remains, in the
audience's eye^, zealously blinded to
Keely's suffering.
But this play doesn't make a truly
profound statement about abortion.
It makes a decent case against the
radical tactics of long-term imprison-
ment, but in all likelihood the people
going to see this play wouldn't en-
dorse this method in the first place.
Its pro-life advocates include a man
for whom very few could feel sympa-
thy, and a woman whose commit-
ment owes more to maternal instincts
than a personal crusade. The pro-
choice representative, Keely, has no
actual political motives, but rather
acts out of feeble hope for some
degree otaontrol over her life and the
fear that she has never learned to
love well enough to raise a child.
. Instead, the play's heart comes
from these women struggling toward
opposing goals yet trying to trust,
and somehow connecting to each
other without any reason other than
loneliness. Until a series of heart-
breaking interventions remind Keely
and Du exactly where they stand,
they evocatively struggle to compre-
hend this experience that has forced
each of them to re-evaluate the con
victions on which their lives have
thus far depended.
MttsMtlctioa
Do vou like
999
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Ideas into Action can help you.
Come to these events.
• Monday, FEB. 21 - Starring an E-commerce Business
Karl Maier
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7:30 - 8:30 in Duncan Hall 1064
• Monday, FEB. 28 - Springboard Session
Find out what you need to get started on your
business idea. Find out the buzz about business.
7:00 - 9:00 p.m. in Symonds Lab, Fondren Librar
RSVP for either event: cainproj@rice.edu
Sponsored by Cain Project in Engineering and Professional Communication.
>v
Beit Ccife
Talent Shew
«t
UUU!
H!
WHEN: TW«rsd««? Feb. 24
WHERE: HHfel Stwdent Center
((769 BIss nnet]
TIME: PM
If you have any talent in the areas of
comedy, music, poetry, magic, or anything else, please
share it with your fellow Hillel friends.
Coffee and cakes will be served.
Interested in performing? Please call Anna
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Call us at (713) 526-4918
^ / / / / / / / j
y///} i1
NORA ACHRATI/THRESHER
Keely (Mia Pfleging, right) and Du (Maria Collins) negotiate in Keely and Du.
get
rour
iead
spinning
caffeine daily.
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McAlister, Jett & Tam, Mariel. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 87, No. 17, Ed. 1 Friday, February 18, 2000, newspaper, February 18, 2000; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246668/m1/13/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.