Finding comfort in ‘Tragic Events'

Theatre Intime’s production of “Recent Tragic Events,” written by Craig Wright and directed by Sarah Hedgecock ’13, is refreshingly approachable considering its potentially touchy subject matter: 9/11. The show raises many complex questions stemming from one simple premise: a blind date between two supposed strangers chanced to occur on Sept. 12, 2001.

The play begins with Waverly — played frenetically by Taylor Mallory ’13 — getting dressed in her apartment and waiting to hear the whereabouts of her twin sister, who may have been trapped in the Twin Towers. Waverly’s bachelor-in-question, bookseller Andrew — played by Max Rosmarin — arrives to pick her up, unaware of her anxiety or the action about to take place.

All of the actors do a nice job of keeping the dialogue flowing in a way that never comes across as too contrived. Rosmarin’s dry interjections and concentrated, thoughtful physicality make his performance truly memorable. For her part, Mallory rapidly and confidently delivers difficult lines and powers through the show, never letting her energy lag. However, certain moments require a more nuanced and less manic level of intensity. For example, the moments when Waverly is moved to tears could have been made more believable with some fine-tuning by Hedgecock.

As the play progresses, Waverly’s desire to return to normalcy competes against her understandable paranoia. Waverly is helped along by her best friend, Ron — played by J.T. Glaze ’13 — his pants-less and mute romantic interest — Olivia Nice ’14 — and, even, a cutesy sock puppet version of Joyce Carol Oates also voiced by Nice. So Princeton! A little too Princeton.

Glaze’s character functions unabashedly as the comic relief of the play. Ron is a tequila-guzzling, hippie musician who promotes notions of cosmic mysticism and the benefits of local, organic sausage. Wright purposefully plays into recognizable stereotypes, and Glaze would have benefitted from exaggerating these stereotypes in his performance. Doing so would have further heightened the playwright’s intrinsically hilarious scripting and packed an even stronger comedic punch.

The set remains mostly unchanged for the duration of the show but functions quite effectively. Its sparse walls dotted with picture frames really make the apartment feel like that of a working twenty-something urbanite. Impossible to ignore were the numerous bottles of liquor, wine and beer that visually reinforced themes of escape and questions of human agency. There is a lot of drinking in this show, and for the most part, the actors do a good job of maintaining a realistic balance of intoxication and intellectual exploration. Lighting could have been more developed, but the inclusion of real news sound bites at just the right volume added a sense of gravity without coming across as overbearing.

“Recent Tragic Events” also has a post-modern tilt which half-heartedly attempts to assign greater significance to its construction. The show’s actual assistant stage manager — Elizabeth Wagner ’14 — appears onstage, breaking the fourth wall by calling attention to her own status as an actor in the play when introducing the show’s key transitions. Yet this disturbance is never properly developed by Wright and seems to detract from the play’s interior narrative. Additionally, a series of beeps sound at various intervals during the play, reminding the audience of when the play’s course of events could have been different. This choice comes across as fairly arbitrary. After all, couldn’t any action, not just those that seem “important” — or for that matter, those that have been selected to seem “unimportant” — in fact, be different?

The play is marked by tension — Waverly is waiting to hear if her sister is alive, but the scripting mandates light-hearted breaks from such agitation. These respites are critical to the show’s pacing and to its message. The show’s strongest moments are those in which the actors really listened to one another and genuinely seemed to relax. For example, a picture frame unexpectedly tumbled during the performance, but Glaze’s excellent ad-lib response reminded the audience that theatre is live and that’s what makes it fun.

“Recent Tragic Events” struggles in its attempt to tackle too much — often the show feels like it is making references to other theatrical genres merely for the sake of doing so and without successfully tying them all together. However, the play is thankfully not moralizing or overly sentimental. The show fuses a variety of genres and thus has the ability to resonate with audience members on many levels. The cast is strong and cohesive as an ensemble. “Recent Tragic Events” warrants a larger audience than it received its first weekend and certainly one that matches the energy and enthusiasm of its actors.