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Volume 82, Issue 19 Web Edition
clarion.brevard.edu
SERVING BREVARD COLLEGE SINCE 1935
Check out the
Netflix review on
page 4!
February 15, 2017
US premiere of 'There is a
War' gets iost in transiation
By Alex Perri
staff Writer
Audiences at the Porter Center’s Morrison
Playhouse saw absurdism take to the stage this
weekend, Feb. 9-12, with the US premiere of
Tom Basden’s “There is a War,” a two-act farce
about the attritional nature of war.
Themes of erosion, pointlessness, and hypoc
risy were explored in the play, which was a part
of the senior capstone project BC theatre majors
collaborated to produce.
The play was marketed as a dark comedy, and
in the play’s program, director Brandon Smith
described his first impressions of “There is a
War” as “an amalgamation of absurdism, didac
ticism, and broad farce.. .a fast-paced romp.”
I attended the show on its opening night, Feb.
9, and I found “There is a War” to be far from
fast paced, and not quite a romp.
While certain BC actors stood out for their
well delivered performances, the play as a whole
successfully executed only a handful of jokes
while fumbling through the rest of the absurdist
material.
Elements of British humor were very appar
ent, and as one audience member noted in the
cast and crew talk back after the Thursday night
show, it was very “Monty Python-esque.” A few
well timed puns landed laughs from the audi
ence, and the absurd situations the characters
found themselves in were amusing enough. For
a dark comedy though, the play was neither ter
ribly dark, nor terribly comedic.
There seemed to be a clear effort to steer the
production away from making a political state
ment about our government’s current climate, in
an attempt to make a more sweeping and obvious
generalization that war is pointless.
The play features a main character Anne, a
doctor desperately looking for the war, but only
able to find some of its more obscure residues as
she wanders aimlessly through the desert. Anne’s
adventures are punctuated by a mystical blues
performer from the sky, Andy Dog.
She runs into characters like the cynical chap
lain, who also can’t find any soldiers to save,
and a band of San Pellegrino toting, hippie-
journalists looking to simultaneously exploit
and protest the war efforts.
The archetypal intent of the play to broadly
apply to society as a whole was clear through
the consistent vagueness. It is never stated why
the two sides are at war, nor is it stated where
or when the war takes place.
Any directions given to Anne along the way
are stated as “the north,” or “the front,” or “that
way” with a point of a finger to some unknown
route in the distance.
The stage was set to resemble a giant sandbox
with a sort of loading dock made of scaffolding
built in the background. The sandbox went on
to represent a desert, a hospital, and a host of
so many other locations, it is hard for this play
reviewer to recall.
The first act is almost entirely forgettable. In
the second act, the satire is more overt. It be
comes apparent that the two sides fighting each
other in the war are simply government puppets
brainwashed by propaganda.
Anne finally finds the hospital she’s been
looking for, after the war has been declared
over, yet the absurdist cycle continues when
the doctors of the hospital are more interested
in fighting people from “the other wing” than
saving dying patients.
Compared to the previous dramas the BC
Theatre has produced, the American premiere
of “There is a War” did not exceed expecta
tions. Among a few clever bright spots, the
play seemed to lag behind its intended tempo
with heavy handed jokes, and subtleties lost in
translation on this side of the pond.
BC Theatre students performed the first showing of Tom Basden’s,
“There is a War” in the United States of America.