Under the theatrical lens

Last weekend, An Experiment with an Air Pump was presented by the theater department and the Robsham Theater Arts Center in association with the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics. Written in 1988 by British playwright Shelagh Stephenson, the action of the play occurs across two different decades as it attempts to grapple with the compelling ethical and moral qualms of bioethics that continuously evolve and add controversy to the field of medical science. At the turn of the 19th century, scientists are grappling with the issues of body snatching. At the turn of the 21st century, the play brings to light the issues of the human genome project, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, stem cell research, and cloning, among others.

The play places counter generations of the Fenwick family together in the same home to compare and contrast time. Stephenson tells us that although many technological advancements have occurred that have modernized our current world, we are still essentially the same human beings dealing with the same issues as those who came before us. A minor theme in the play, for example, is the issue of women in society. The character Armstrong comments in the first act, "keep infants away from the fireplace and women away from science."

The dynamic of economics in society and how it affects science also comes into play. The world's leading scientists are making up their minds on questions that affect society as a whole. Many, however, like those in the play, fail to ask the bigger questions. They are motivated by fame and greed. Knowledge does not matter. Dr. Fenwick proclaims, "We'll build a new Eden and a new Jerusalem." Isobel counters this with a poignant mythological illusion, "What about the sheep?"

Despite the play's varied achievements, its artistic success was ultimately marred by a poor collaboration between director and designer, leaving the audience confused and distracted. The scenery was in no means aesthetically appealing.

Non-professional theaters need to try and stop half-decent emulations of plays that are out of their creative grasp (i.e. high school productions of Les Miserables). Case-in-point: director Patricia Riggins' decision to direct Air Pump in a theater that lacked the funding to portion part of the stage into a mechanical, rotating circle. Watching the production, I witnessed stage hands poking their hands out from under a curtain and turning the platform. The actors were never able to line up the furniture properly, causing the furniture to collide with the walls of the set and leading to further distraction from the action of the play. The circle could not be built into the stage but rather was a raised platform, which was very hollow, creating distractions with every movement on top of it.

Stephenson leaves the director clear directions for how the lighting should be executed. All were ignored. The character Maria (Kyla Fallon, A&S '09) has several monologues that, while they serve a purpose to the theme of the play, are written from a technical standpoint to allow for scene changes to occur. No blackouts were taken, however, except at the end of each act. As actors and stage hands walked on stage to clear the scenery, the line between fantasy and reality was broken. A single, focused spotlight should have been on Maria rather than illuminating the entire stage. Perhaps the largest fault of this decision was that it revealed to the audience Isobel stepping up to the rope and positioning herself for the scene in which she attempts to hang herself, removing the shock-value in Stephenson's writing.

Similarly, the sound design was unusual. Music, in theater as well as other entertainment mediums, has evolved into a mechanism that instructs the audience how to think. The music that was selected seemed constantly out of place, failing to mirror the more somber tone of the play.

It is interesting that in a play about the female's secondary role in society, the truly resilient actors are the women. Fallon stole the show as Maria. Her comic timing was sharp as a razor and her character rambunctious enough to bring the show to life again in the second act. Dan Fabrizio, A&S '10, also displayed that he has talent. This talent, however, has not completely manifested itself. His voice and makeup transformed him into an older man, but that alone is not enough to create a character, which requires a transformation of the entire body. He comes off as an awkward teenager, slouching around. There was a lack of chemistry between him and his partner, preventing the actress who played his wife, the talented Sarah Lucie, A&S '09, from excelling.

Partly an issue of Stepehson's playwriting and partly that of the directing, the play catapults through the second act at such an accelerated pulse that it eclipses the mostly dreadful first act. Riggins' succeeds by leaving the audience with a tangible message at the play's end. The montage that she created and projected at the play's close, depicting the technological advancements that have occurred over the past two centuries, was a beautiful decision from the director's standpoint. It correlates with Stephenson's voice in the play which advocates for an ethical reflection on all of the issues that press science today.