It’s not every day you go to the theater and see one play about dissociation and misogyny, and another about a vegetable mafia. From Feb. 5 to 7, that’s exactly what the Suffolk University Theatre Department had to offer at the Sullivan Studio Theater in Sawyer for their annual Spring Showcase, featuring student-created plays “Don’t Cut The Empty Cake” and “Lettuce.”
“Don’t Cut The Empty Cake,” written by junior Andrew Hurley and directed by senior Sam Hackett, follows a man named Paul (Justin Darrigo) throughout his repetitive and rapid work week.
Between the repetitive nature of the show, there were bizarre interludes, like an ad for a stereotypical “Generic Fast Food” company, which included a random scream from its CEO (Kayla Rodriguez), and an “alpha male” (Quentin Boyd) breaking the fourth wall and berating the audience about modern society.
Driven by increasing frustration about not receiving recognition from his coworkers (Boyd and Matthew Townsend) and encouragement from the “alpha male,” Paul kills a female coworker (also played by Rodriguez) with a knife, invoking the play’s title.
“The play is a representation of dissociating from reality and kind of losing track of what reality is. I tried pulling that into people who actually experienced dissociation and how that can affect the real world, aka misogyny and sexism, and how a lot of terrible people are just horribly, horribly mentally ill,” said Hurley.
The play featured a liminal setting, and a small, intimate cast of four students. But through their acting, and with the help of sound effects, this show was able to portray a variety of settings in an excellent manner.
“It was just hitting the ground running and talking about what we wanted the play to look like, what we wanted the play to feel like, what we thought the play was about and just, creating this communal understanding of it,” said Hackett.
“Lettuce,” on the other hand, was vastly different from “Don’t Cut The Empty Cake.” Written and directed by junior James Butler, it featured a pair of lettuce store owners (Maya Grgurevich and Sofia Patriarca), struggling to sell a single head of lettuce. Through a series of events, they get caught up in legal trouble from Big Vegetable’s lawyers Barry M. Deep (Randy Brown) and Sue M. Hard (Kylie Brodsky) and face threats from a related vegetable mafia. After a variety of shootouts, deaths and other comical bits (including the band GWAR making an appearance and being killed immediately), the store owners emerge victorious, even shooting the stage director (Rodriguez).
The play, as Butler described, came from an idea inspired by the campus improv group, Seriously Bent, three years ago.
“When we get a prompt, we’re supposed to go [from] A to B to C. My prompt was produce, and I thought, ‘you know, what’s funny? That’s pronounced the same as produce.’ I was making lettuce, and the line was just ‘we gotta make 500 lettuce.’ And that was the bit,” said Butler. “Then I was in playwriting and I had to make a scene. People found the concept of the lettuce man so funny that I was like, I can write a play.”
Unlike the previous play, “Lettuce” had a complex set, including lettuce constantly being added to the set during the scenes, and plenty of props throughout. However, both plays had most actors playing multiple characters in a single act.
“A lot of the rehearsal process was just figuring out alternative ways for a character to die off stage, just so that their actor would be able to do their quick change,” said Butler.
Both plays’ directors were excited to see their work come together, especially given that both plays were quite complex.
“It was really, truly better than I expected, beyond my wildest dreams. Andrew [Hurley] and I have been talking about this show for about eight months at this point. We’ve gone through two iterations of the script, and this was a full-on sprint to get to the end, but it was so fulfilling, and I’m so happy with the final product,” said Hackett.
Despite the different themes, and emotional whiplash between the two shows, both directors still felt that their play still went together well, especially given their similar techniques.
“No matter what the order is, we think it’s a fun time because there are a lot of techniques used in both shows that stray from typical theater that are used in completely opposite ways. We’ve been talking about how we’re on the opposite ends of the absurdity spectrum, and I think they’re nice compliments to each other as a duo,” said Butler.
Looking ahead, a pro-shot recording of “Lettuce” will be published online, and Hurley, Hackett and Butler, are all looking forward to working on future productions.
“At some point, it will be a return of this iconic duo, probably not at Suffolk University, but maybe professionally,” said Hackett about his work with Hurley.
