PREVIEW: Stop Kiss at USC's Lab Theatre by Rebecca Shrom

What do you want?”

“Sara asks this question repeatedly throughout the show, and I think it is important to ask that now and again,” explains Liz Houck, senior Theatre and Psychology major at USC, who is directing Stop Kiss in USC’s Lab Theater. Stop Kiss is a play about love. Not just the romantic love between a man and a woman, or the romantic love between two women, or two men, but the kind of love that builds from friendships, and all the fluidity that can be found in between.

Stop Kiss, by Diana Son, is a play, set in New York, which centers around 2 women, Callie (Jasmine James) and Sara (Imani Hanley), and their blossoming relationship. One fateful night, when Callie and Sara share their first kiss, they are both assaulted in the park. Callie remains physically unharmed, but Sara is beaten into a coma. The play then continues to jump back and forth between two timelines: the time before the accident and the recovery process. The play explores Callie and Sara’s relationship, their relationships with others, and how many different ways there can be to love someone, whether romantically, platonically, or otherwise.

“Stop Kiss is such a poignant, powerful play that says so much about systemic oppression and broken systems,” Houck explains. She is hoping that will bring back the question of “What do you want?” to the forefront of the audience’s brain. But not only that, she is hoping it will be a catalyst for discussion. She states, “… It’s even more productive to ask more specific questions such as ‘What do you want to change in the world in order to help people like Callie and Sara exist without fear?’ and ‘What do you want to do about the current system?’”

Stop Kiss, despite being published 17 years ago, still remains extremely relevant.  Freddie Powers (George) shares, “[The play] was an important message about violence against queer people when the play was published in 1998 and it's almost shocking how easily adaptable it is to 2015. We didn't have to make any changes in the script because nothing sounds out of place today; the message is still just as relevant.” Houck goes on to explain, “Considering the current social climate regarding race and sexuality especially, there is a call to action to be taken from the show, especially in a state where marriage equality happened in the same year as the Charleston Nine tragedy. How does that happen, and what does that say about us?

Houck also states that the production is going to use glitch art to address the issue of oppression visually. With the help of USC Media Arts MA alum OK Keyes, the cast was led in a workshop, took images from the media, and broke them in order to creat something new.  Houck says, “We are using glitch art as a means to break the systems which oppress the charcaters in the world of the play, which mirrors the world in which we live. Glitch involves breaking the image: the actual code is bent or broken, which distorts the image.”

But in the end, it really all comes back to the idea of love. Everyone should be free to love, and let others love in whatever fashion they desire. Abi McNeely (Mrs. Winsley/Nurse) shares, “There are so many different types of love: romantic, sexual, friendly, combinations of all three... and nowadays, these different types are even more prominent, especially with young people. There will always be people against these different kinds of love, but people love anyway. And that's important. It doesn't matter; love anyway.”

Stop Kiss will be performed in the Booker T. Washington Theater (1400 Wheat St.) on October 15-18 at 8 pm each night. Tickets are $5 at the door. For more information about Stop Kiss or the theatre program at the University of South Carolina, contact Kevin Bush by phone at (803) 777-9353 or via email at bushk@mailbox.sc.edu.

 Stop Kiss contains adult language and content 
that is not suitable for children.

The Women of Troy: Teaching the World Equality Through Theatre by Haley Sprankle

“To every woman who gave birth to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation; we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America.”

Patricia Arquette’s rousing Oscar acceptance speech not only called to question the inequality women today face all over the world, but the inequality women have faced throughout time.

According to the American Association of University Women (AAUW):

• Hispanic and Latina women were paid 54 percent of what white men were paid in 2013.
• Women make up just 14 percent of the engineering workforce.
• Women represent only 18.5 percent of Congress.
• 24 states have never elected a woman governor.
• The United States ranks 60^th globally in women’s political empowerment.
• 60 percent of sexual assaults have gone unreported since 2009.
• Women make up just 4.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs.
• More than 22 million working women do not have paid sick days.
• Half of working mothers say that they often take unpaid time off to care for a sick child.
• So far in 2014, state legislatures have introduced 468 restrictions on women’s bodies, and zero for men.

(“10 Stats on Women’s Equality That Might Be Scarier than Halloween,” AAUW)

These striking statistics reinforce how the nation and the world needs to raise awareness and fight for gender equality.

One way that can be achieved — through the medium of theatre.

The University of South Carolina’s Lab Theatre opens Trojan Women, and immersive theatre experience written by Euripides, and directed by senior Kelsea Woods Thursday, Feb. 26.

“Feminism definitely plays into the show. First of all, it’s a show with eight women and two men which is something that you almost never see in modern theatre, much less Ancient Greek theatre. That’s definitely a feminist aspect right off the bat,” sophomore Brooke Smith, chorus member, explains. “I also think the play, especially our interpretation of it, shows women persevering in an extremely difficult, tragic situation and uniting together to take control of their own fate. If that’s not some awesome feminism, I don’t know what is.”

These women of Troy, both fictional and historical, represent all women in their own respective manner in the way they act and the way the actors describe them. They are broken, fervent, observant, good-hearted, strong and resilient women who face unsurmountable odds.

“It’s not Cassandra’s fault she is crazy — It’s Apollo’s. Literally the only reason she is crazy is because she said no having sex with Apollo. Everyone else treats her like she is insane, so she is,” senior Rebecca Shrom, playing Cassandra, elaborates. “Honestly, she is one of the only people who accepts her fate and takes it head on. Everyone else is all, ‘Woe is me. Weep for me,’ while Cassandra says, ‘Watch me while I destroy our enemies, the thing the men couldn’t do.’”

While each woman has their individuality, they also come together as one to face the world that crumbles before them.

“This very easily could be a play of women being very, ‘Take pity on me,’ wallowing, and just succumbing to this force and subordinating. In the way that I’m reinterpreting it, I’m seeing these women and their general call to action to these crimes that the Greek people would have seen as a feminist platform in today’s society where they are constantly rallying and actively not giving up. Even when the only thing they have left is to express their grief and weep, that is so powerful to them,” Woods adds.

This grief plagues women today as it did the women of Troy and of nations past.

“A big thing that we’ve talked about and something I’ve been kind of looking into more is the idea of women really being the true victims of war as far as being prone to war crimes such as systematic rape like what’s going on in Syria and all these crazy things where men use them as objects to gain power,” Woods says.

As a first-time director, Woods has created the world for the women of Troy in a new, modern way.

“In bringing it into our world and approaching it with a modern sensibility, I chose a translation that would allow for that. It’s still heightened text, but the translator did a fantastic job of making it so immediate, that I think modern audiences will respond to that. In kind of going in that way and as its very much a reflection of issues going on now, I just wanted to bring the whole production from design, staging, going about it in a new, nontraditional way — I just wanted to bring all of that modernity into a new interpretation of a classical text,” Woods says.

Not only does Woods modernize the world to make it more applicable, she offers the idea of immersive theatre.

“This is not your typical production. The intimate, immersive quality of the show is unlike any other I have had the opportunity to work on. Audience members will have no choice but to fully engage with this timeless story. This theatrical experience is all encompassing,” junior Jamie Boller, playing the lead of Hecuba, adds.

This new theatrical concept mixed with an old struggle for women’s rights and respect brings the audience into a world where they are forced to face the facts that the world still has room for improvement.

“Our community has expanded in a greater sense than what it once was, but it still calls for empathy, compassion, understanding, all these things that we often lose sight of, but are so incredibly important. Being aware of these factors helps things like war not happen. Especially given all the current political situations — it’s the same issue we’ve been dealing with for thousands of years, but we haven’t learned fully from our mistakes just yet,” Woods says.

Through these overwhelming statistics, this powerful story, and the women who have dealt with and continue to deal with these issues, there is a lesson to be learned from Hecuba, the main character:

“Life means hope,” and that hope is that the world will change for the better as women continue to strive for equality.

“This show really demonstrates that women have the ability to fight back in their own way,” junior Cami Reid says, “Even under the most devastating of circumstances.”

For Your Consideration -- Jasper's take on three plays opening in Columbia this week

Jasper loves going to the theatre. On rare occasions, he'll just show up and be surprised by what he gets. But most of the time, he does his homework. There are three shows opening in the city this week. One you should just show up for and have a good time. One you might want to do a little planning for. And another that you need to know what you're getting into so, you know, you can really get into it. Anything Goes, opening at Workshop Theatre on Friday night and running through October 1st, is like an ice cream sundae. You really just have to go for it. Other than knowing it's Cole Porter and how, like ice cream and chocolate syrup, it's brilliant in its simplicity, you don't need to over-analyze it. Just have fun. And, given that Cindy Flach is directing it, yeah, you will have fun. Flach has a way, not only with execution, but with space. Her shows conjure up words like pizzazz, and sizzle, and flare. She's another one of Columbia's treasures who asks for little attention, but always gets the job done and gets it done well.

On Wednesday night, in some wild configuration of the Trustus Black Box and Late Night series, our boy Larry Hembree opens Randall David Cook's play, Third Finger, Left Hand. The show plays Wednesday nights at 7:30 and Friday and Saturday nights at 11, for two weeks. Cook is a hometown boy who has done well so, in our book, that would be reason enough to go out and support this show with your patronage. But there's more -- well, first of all, you know Larry Hembree and the kind of weird and magical spells he tends to put on a stage, so, there's that. But the bottom line is that the play has been described as both "Southern gothic" and "twisted" -- terms that makes Jasper's pulse absolutely race. (Jasper likes weird -- why hide it?) But here's the thing -- Cook and Hembree are also presenting a little bonus, next Tuesday the 20th, when they give a staged reading of another little something from Cook's box of tricks, a play called Southern Discomfort. In an effort to construct something of a study of Cook's work, we'll be seeing both the reading and the play next week. Then we're going to sit down and decide what we really think of Cook's work and talk about it. We invite our lovely readers to join us in this online discussion next week. Come back here -- right here -- and share your comments below. We look forward to getting your views.

Finally, a third play opens this week that already has us wiggling in our seats. We've never seen David Mamet's Oleanna, but we've seen David Mamet's Race (with David Spade) and his Glengarry, Glen Ross (with Alan Alda), and we've seen his films, Wag the Dog, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Verdict, to name just a few. So we know that when David Mamet writes for us, we have to prepare ourselves to be receptive. Mamet's use of language and delivery (called "Mamet speak") is unique and edgy and a little scary. Rather than enjoying a little vino or a draught of bourbon before a Mamet play, we recommend you dose up on caffeine -- not to help you stay awake, but rather to help you keep up. Mamet is unrelenting. That said, the subject of Oleanna is sexual harassment in the academy. A subject far too serious to trivialize or present solely for entertainment value. Mamet doesn't - it will be interesting to see what director, Ait Federolf, a senior in the department of theatre at USC, does with his production. It opens at the USC Lab Theatre on Thursday night, the 15th -- but you'll be busy then attending the Jasper Magazine Launch Party at Speakeasy -- and only runs until the 18th. All shows are at 8 pm and cost $5 -- with tickets available only at the door.

For more information on all three plays, visit the following websites or addresses  respectively:

Anything Goes - workshoptheatre.com/11-12season_AnythingGoes.html

Third Finger, Left Hand - Trustus.org

Oleanna - bushk@mailbox.sc.edu

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