For the first show of All Campus Theatre’s season, the group is presenting something a little different. Today through Oct. 7 at 7 p.m. in the Wesley Center on campus, the group is putting on two one-act absurdist comedies entitled “Night of the Absurd.” The two one-acts are “American Dream” and “Line.”
The shows are being directed by Travis Flatt, a veteran member of ACT and the Knoxville theatre community. Travis has previously directed “subUrbia” and “The Outsiders” in the Clarence Brown Theatre lab and has recently performed in plays for the Clarence Brown Theatre, the Actor’s Co-op, the Oak Ridge Playhouse and in the CBT Lab. Flatt says that he “wanted to do these two plays because … Knoxville needs more of this kind of theatre, and because … ACT exists for this sort of production (one that might not usually go on in Knoxville).”
Amanda Faye Smith, a junior in theatre, is also involved as co-director of “Night of the Absurd.” Smith is a former ACT officer and has recently been involved in “The Vagina Monologues,” the original play “Spoken” and under Flatt’s direction in “subUrbia.” Smith adds to Flatt’s reasons for doing the shows, explaining that “Travis and I picked these shows because they are high energy and let the very talented undergrads show their comedic skills as well as (highlight) some very important issues in our society.”
“American Dream” was written by Edward Albee, who also penned “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and “Zoo Story.” The play, according to Albee, is “an examination of the American Scene.”
According to Joel Ashton, who plays Daddy, the show deals with “gender and family roles in society as well as the substitution of real values for artificial ones. It also involves themes of emasculation, language and literalism, mistreatment of the elderly, and moral/emotional emptiness.”
In the piece, Mommy is the controlling wife hiding behind a pleasant front, Daddy is helplessly emasculated and unable to obtain satisfaction, and Grandma, as Ashton puts it, “deals with the ridicule and neglect aimed at her by the other characters by pretending to be senile and helpless.” Enter flaky Mrs. Barker and the attractive but soulless Young Man and you have an interesting inspection into this family and its characters.
“Line,” written by Israel Horovitz, is the longest-running, off-Broadway play in history. It is a comedy about five people waiting in line who are all compelled to employ whatever means they have at their disposal to be the first in line. According to Flatt, some people would say “Line” is about “the rat race we’re all put through every day, where what society values (being first in line) becomes more important than anything real or actually valuable.” Others might see the show as being about capitalism.
The cost of admission is $3 at the door and the producers ask that, for logistical reasons with the space, audience members try to arrive promptly at 7 p.m.
