Nasser's short sketch follows the theme of illumining human and societal foibles through humor that borders on absurdity. The protagonist of the "The Oologist's Egg" is Fritz, the fabled "passionate egg" that has been discovered by the domineering female oologist and taken into laboratory settings for study. There are three other auxiliary egg-characters that draw out more fully the bizarre relationship between the oologist and her egg-subjects.
The premise of the play, which lasts less than 20 minutes long, is a scientific demonstration by the oologist of the egg-hatching process. The oologist is frequently interrupted by her sometimes uncooperative subjects, whom she has taken on as her children, resulting in a bizarre dynamic.
"She's doing a demonstration; the audience gets to see under the cracks of the demonstration," Nasser said. "You can see the relationships between the scientist and her study -- between the parent and child figure. The relationships in this play are rich. It's different from a lot of other things I've seen on stage and it's really complicated. It's a silly little comedy. It deals with issues -- passion and dispassion in science -- and really just boils down to these relationships."
Nasser, a international student from Canada, originally wrote the play purely for pleasure, and on a whim submitted it to the Eleanor Frost Playwriting Competition, where it was chosen for a reading last term.
"I just write plays for a hobby. It's kind of what I want to do," Nasser said. His first introduction to playwriting was through a theater class he took during Fall term of his freshman year. Nasser said he didn't grow up in a family that typically attended Broadway musicals on weekends.
"The first play that I saw was Mama Mia when it came to Toronto. I went to see it with my mom, and she gave it a standing ovation and I was sitting down, miserable," Nasser said.
Nasser cites the warmth exhibited by the students and faculty of the theater department as a primary motivator for his interest in theater.
"Because theater is such a collaborative art, you have to like the people you're working with. This is a place where real relationships are formed," he said.
"The Oologist" was chosen to replace a short sketch by Samuel Beckett because of difficulties with copyright issues. Chair of the theater department Peter Hackett '75, who was familiar with the play from the Frost competition, made the request.
When Ford Evans, director of the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble and adjunct professor of theater, suggested to Hackett that they substitute Beckett's play with a piece that incorporated narration with movement, Hackett immediately thought of Nasser, offering him a rare opportunity.
"To be called and asked if you want your play to be produced alongside Chekhov's, Beckett's and Ionesco's -- it's something that won't ever happen again in my life -- even if I am a really successful playwright," Nasser said. "I'm still kind of reeling off of that."
Michelle Cohen '08, stage manager of the production, admitted that she was surprised to hear a student play had been chosen, but said, "The "fact that it was Latif's play doesn't surprise me at all."
"It was an intelligent choice to include his because it fits in with the other pieces well," she said.
The distinct collaboration aspect of "A Mouth as Big as All Outdoors" is the brainchild of Hackett. According to Evans, Hacket, after seeing several dance performances, decided he wanted the acting students to have a movement experience alongside an acting experience. The result, Evans said, was a physical sequence that dynamically complemented the verbal dialogue.
"Movement didn't really exist for [the actors] before this," Evans said. "We've taken some liberties, and I think the liberties are well within keeping the play as it is. We're not changing dialogue, but adding movement to it, to create a very surreal and humorous work."
Evans gives the example of Chekhov's "Evils of Tobacco," which was transformed into a movement dialogue of 14 people from the original one-person monologue.
Yet this innovative and novel combining of two disciplines is not without its obstacles.
"Combining those two mindsets [of dancers and actors] has been at times difficult, just from a logistics point of view, in trying to get the cast as one cohesive unit. The learning curves have been different," Cohen said.
Adding an element of movement helped the six separate flow into one over-arching construction, particularly since the intermissions, transitions and prop changes have all been transformed into a dance performance.
"Each one thing flows into the next and when it starts it doesn't stop," Evans said.
"A Mouth as Big as All Outdoors" opened Thursday evening at 8 p.m. in the Moore theater and runs through August 3.
