Pedophilia is a hard topic to talk about, and even harder to act. Despite the subject's sensitivity, students gracefully staged "Frozen" a play about child abduction that examines the ways that people interact with criminals this weekend. The multifaceted and difficult nature of such interactions was aptly portrayed in the direction, production and acting that went into the production.
"Frozen," written by Bryony Lavery, was performed in the Bentley Theater as the culminating experience for the four theater majors in the Class of 2011. Sarah Laeuchli '11 directed, Alden DiIanni-Morton '11 produced and stage managed and Grace Johnson '11 and Chris Holland '11 acted in the play.
Set in present-day England, "Frozen" examines the case of an abducted child and the lives of three individuals involved the child's mother, Nancy (Carol Brown '12), a serial killer named Ralph (Holland) and an American doctor named Agnetha (Johnson) who studies the minds of criminals like Ralph.
The minimal set built of wood with different levels and platforms for the actors to move between created a dream-like atmosphere that left the focus on the characters. The play is largely written in monologues, and until the meeting between Ralph and Agnetha, the characters all take turns coming onstage to speak directly to the audience or to think aloud.
"As seniors we wanted to explore the way people treat each other, and this play is chock full of that," Holland said. "It expresses the positive ways in which human beings treat each other and it explores the negative, gritty, hellish ways we treat each other. And that's what we wanted to show to an audience and leave Dartmouth College with."
All three actors pushed themselves emotionally, physically and vocally in their performances Holland and Brown held excellent Cockney and Scottish accents, respectively, throughout the entirety of the play. Both portrayed a range of emotions that created many exceptionally touching moments, in particular the scene where Ralph began to feel remorse for what he had done. His moment of realization and his ensuing admission of regret to Nancy is a pinnacle point of the play, and Holland expressed the right amount of passion and integrity into the scene.
"I'm always attracted to characters who have that chip on their shoulders, who are not liked, because I want to understand," Holland said. "And I feel that that's the only way humanity is ever going to get better, is if we try to understand each other."
Brown was very honest in her nuanced portrayal of a mother who has lost her child to a pedophile. She convincingly embodied the deepest feelings of grief and strife, while still managing to bring a truthful quality of light-heartedness to her complex character. Johnson also managed to portray a range of sentiments, at times breaking down and losing control of her passions while also maintaining a professional air when confronting the audience.
"This play deals strongly with the idea of when people are human and when people lose humanity, and the very fine line between those things," Laeuchli said. "Every single one of these characters goes to the monster place, and the monster of the piece finds his humanity at the end of the play."
The culminating experience began in Winter term with Theater 90, taught by theater professor Jamie Horton. The four students suggest plays that they were interested in staging, and the class then chose "Frozen" together. The entire production was student-run, with some help from Horton. According to DiIanni-Morton, the autonomy that students had in this project helped them become more involved in all aspects of production, even those outside of their official job descriptions.
"It encouraged the four of us to have conversations that we might not have had if we were compartmentalized into our roles," DiIanni-Morton said.
The small nature of the theater department allows the majors to work on smaller, more intimate projects such as "Frozen," according to Laeuchli. The senior culminating experience also provides non-seniors the opportunity to collaborate with seniors during the term.
"You don't just get a major out of this department," Laeuchli said. "You get mentors, you get people who change your life, you get family out of this department. That has been unbelievably important."
