'Ashland' a good time for a good cause

Entirely student-created, "The Captives of Ashland" is a rock musical written by Courtny Hopen '08 and Rich Lopez '09. It chronicles the search for home, examining what it means to be homeless. Fittingly, as one of the main events of the SVC's Hunger and Homelessness Awareness week, the show is intended to raise money for Princeton's Habitat for Humanity program.

Four teens — Seth (Brandon Lowden '09), Gretchen (Tiffany Tang '10), Nina (Dalia Nahol '10) and Chris (J.D. Walters '09) — take a getaway trip to Seth's family's second home in Ashland, Ore., but are caught by surprise when they find a woman named Sandy (Emily Moses '08) and her young daughter Ariel (Nicole Fegeas '10) have broken into the house and are sleeping there. The plot thickens when Sandy's husband (played by Peter Combs '08) shows up, desperate to kill the legendary white stag that lives in the surrounding forest. Only Ariel knows where the stag lives, but she refuses to tell anyone. As if that weren't enough, there is a murderer on the loose and a threat of a quickly approaching wildfire.

The musical attempts to define the concept of home. Each character is forced to confront a sort of displacement from his home: The four teens leave their homes for a trip only to find their vacation home already occupied by strangers. Sandy and Ariel escape and become homeless, seeking refuge in a stranger's house. Sandy's husband finds his home suddenly incomplete without his wife and daughter and sets out to find them.

The musical sends the message that a home is one of the most important things a person can have, but that it is found in other people rather than in a physical place. Even as the teens' vacation home burns to the ground, it is clear that what is crucial to the characters is not the loss of their house; the most important thing for all the characters is to hold on to one another.

The students had next to no budget to work with, so the production is bare-boned. There is no set in the new Whitman Blackbox, so the scenery of the elaborate plot is left to the audience's imagination. In addition, the actors wear their own clothes as costumes — some of which don't mesh with their characters. The actors have only a couple of pieces of furniture and a few minimal props.

The show's weaknesses should not be dwelled upon, however. The show successfully combines entertainment with a good message that benefits a great cause. This show deserves to be well-attended to support an important effort. Why not do your good deed for the day and enjoy yourself while you're at it?