It’s the year of the absurd, the year of the meta-theater, the year of the nearly-nude, and a year not to miss Ramshead’s Original Winter One Acts. Strong acting and snappy plot lines weave together into a delightfully absurd evening. Tackling overlapping questions of existence, sex and chance encounter, each of the plays nonetheless offers a fresh perspective. Such are the overlaps between the three pieces, in fact, that the show flows with the cohesion of a show thoughtfully curated. Pleasantly surprised at the connections between the plays, I allowed myself to relax into the evening rather than constantly fighting to figure out what was happening and which direction it was coming from. I entered the theater hungry and worried about all the reading I had to finish that night, and I left buzzing — still hungry, but definitely smiling at a perceived victory by our friends in the theater community. Come prepared to briefly consider philosophical concepts, but mostly to poke fun at those who take those concepts too seriously. Self-referential and crisp, OWOA 2015 delivers.
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Due Dates eases itself into a zany plot-line. A fitting scale for the OWOA stage, the piece showcases the sincere, complementary acting talents of lead actors Jeffrey Abidor and Nishant Karandikar. The play clips along, depicting an average day at the library with some—you guess it—absurd twists. Nuggets of truth glimmered, sometimes a bit clunkily, under a punchy storyline. Relatable in his depictions of the longings of befuddled college boys, playwright Daniel Johnson allows for some well-measured farce within a fluid narrative.
Tight and self-aware, The Script Selector features the well-cast Emma Jackson-Smith and Brandon Silberstein in less literal spaces than the previous play. Jackson-Smith masterfully embodies an authoritative male while Silberstein makes himself vulnerable to her. Maturely reveling in pauses and forcing the audience to consider where the line between cliché and truth lies, this piece was a strong centerpiece to the evening in a genre that can tend toward the aphoristic. Denouncing faux-intellectualism, playwright Kiran Ran Magar insightfully probes at what he is doing there. Thoughtful tech elements also secure The Script Selector’s spot as the most professionally produced of the three plays. It makes no sense, but hey, that’s the fun of it.
No spoilers, but you will see more skin by the end of Occam’s House than the first few flannel-clad actors initially let on. Playing on horror movie tropes, playwright Brandon Silberstein (same Brandon just seen acting in The Script Selector) locks 10 strangers into an abandoned house. You can guess what happens next. Except you can’t, as the story begins moving further and further away from classic melodrama plots. A large but effectively-reared cast pushes the edges of appropriate social interaction. Particularly amusing is Jeff Bennett’s performance as the dopey and misguided Vincent. The play’s unwieldy ending, while perhaps alienating on its own, only feels appropriate as a conclusion for an absurd but satisfying evening.
You should go see OWOA this weekend. It’s the start of what is looking to be a dynamic quarter of theater at Stanford. The diversity of characters the talented cast presents makes me hopeful about the work these individuals will do in future Stanford productions. It’s no easy task to stage student-written works, especially ones that flow and fit together gracefully. But OWOA pulls it off. It’s an absurd evening that’s worth your time.
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Photo credit: Avi Bagla
('17, Classics) grew up in Evanston, Illinois. She wants to write a museum.