Tonight at 8 p.m., the Dartmouth theater department's rendition of "pool (no water)" will begin a three-performance run in the Moore Theater. The production will serve as the culminating experience for all of this year's 11 graduating theater majors, with seven students acting, and four others working as sound, set, costume and lighting designers.
The show tells the story of several aspiring artists who reunite one evening at the house of a rich friend. The gathering proceeds swimmingly -- until a tragic accident lands the host in a coma. The guests, jealous of their now-incapacitated friend's success, begin to use her body for their own profit. Their questionable behavior soon begins to spiral out of control.
The play has been brought to Moore theatre almost entirely by the senior theater majors with the help of alumna Rachel Karpf '07, the play's director, and a small handful of other students who worked on the technical team.
This is only the second year in recent memory that majors have organized a collective culminating experience, Toumanoff said. In the past, each individual worked on his or her own final project.
According to Toumanoff and Morales, the idea to stage "pool (no water)" came only after countless other suggestions for the collective production were vetoed by various students. These failed suggestions ranged from the traditionally classic -- Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" -- to the fantastical -- a staged version of a story by Neil Gaiman, the English science fiction and comics writer.
"There was always some reason why we couldn't do it," Toumanoff said. "But then [Morales] brought up 'pool,' and we liked it because we could basically do whatever we wanted with it."
Indeed, "pool (no water)" lends itself well to the specific needs of the group. In writing the script for his piece, Ravenhill did not assign lines to corresponding roles; the job of apportioning dialogue is left open, which accommodates this unusually female-heavy cast, comprised of one male and six female actors.
In addition to being a practical fit, the play also appealed to the group artistically.
"We talked at the beginning of [Winter] term about what all of us found exciting about theater, and that was movement, that was telling a story, creating a new world that we could invite the audience into and really connecting with the audience," Toumanoff said. "We went to look for a play that did all those things, and found 'pool (no water).'"
Perhaps because of the piece's flexibility, the performance takes on a very experimental feel. To help them bring the story to life, the actors rely heavily on abstract physical movement, choreographed and blocked with the help of Ford Evans, director of the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble.
According to Karpf, the play's flexibility also allowed the play to meet the needs of the designers.
"It frees our designers a little bit, from having to think 'Okay, this is a bedroom,' to 'It can be anything.' And that's really great, because it can be about creating a mood and an environment rather than creating a specific space," Karpf said.
For most of the 11 theater majors, "pool (no water)" will be their last major Dartmouth production -- a bittersweet realization for the cast, who concluded their dress rehearsal with a large group bear hug.
"As soon as we're done with this show, it's going to be like, 'Damn. We're so glad we have the free time, but damn,'" actor Dylan Hume '09 said.
