Nick, the character played by University senior Evan Marshall, sits in his dorm room post-copulation with his nameless girlfriend. As they lie naked, she notices scarring on Nick’s stomach. She asks about it, and Nick begins to explain his past encounter with multiple cyber identities and a tortured childhood.
Senior Logan Cole is the director of Carlos Murillo’s “Dark Play or Stories for Boys,” which is surrounded by themes of manipulation, sexual mores and deception — all behind the façade of an Internet identity, or in this case, multiple identities.
The play opens Thursday at the University’s Pocket Playhouse, and Cole hopes students will appreciate the modern look at Internet accountability.
Cole and his band of actors make the issue come alive. The directing is entirely original, as Cole had never seen the play before.
Cole uses interesting sound techniques to add a new level to the story. For some narrative voice-overs, Cole used an audio program to record different actors’ and actresses’ voices as well as sound effects, which he edits and plays over speakers at the appropriate moments.
“I don’t like directing shows that I’ve been in or shows that I’ve seen before. You tend to try to copy,” Cole said.
The cast tackles new-age themes surrounding social networking and transparency that are present in the lives of students. Cole said students deal with Internet accountabiity when they post a picture or update their statuses on Twitter or Facebook.
“Cyber identities are available to be used by anyone,” Marshall said. “And they should be used to one’s own discretion.”
Some, such as the protagonist and narrator, Nick, choose not to use the Internet honestly or responsibly.
“I make shit up. I make shit up all the time, partly ’cause I like making shit up, partly ’cause I’m good at it and partly ’cause, well, I can,” he audaciously proclaims in the opening scene.
Nick talks to his audience about gullibility. He presents the “Universal Theory of the Gullibility Threshold” and how most people can be effortlessly duped into believing anything. Whether it be homeless veterans on the side of the road asking for change with fabricated war stories or made-up profiles in Internet chat rooms, Nick believes anyone can be tricked.
Nick begins to see the Internet as a platform for his own lies. Nick moves around chat rooms and discovers Adam, a 16-year-old who wants nothing more than to fall in love with a girl with green eyes and dirty blonde hair. In a state of shock, curiosity and mischief, Nick dupes this gullible romantic by posing as “Rachel,” the girl of Adam’s dreams.
“Being an online person, you don’t really know that I exist, but at the same time, I’m a part of this guy’s life entirely, so it’s hard to figure out what’s separate from what,” said University student Dana Fleck, who plays Rachel.
Through his fantastical Rachel, Nick exposes the audience to the willingness of random strangers to be vulnerable to one another.
“Dark Play or Stories for Boys” runs today through Saturday starting at 5 p.m. in the Pocket Playhouse in Villard Hall.
[email protected]