Invitation to a play

Invitation to a play
Originally uploaded by macnamband.

Three actors, all undergraduates. Two girls, a boy. And one other actress drawn in at the last moment to do a little routine before the play started. As for the play itself, we put together a series of emotional plots, then improvised dialogue, practiced the improvisation and went live last night. Some of the plots were chosen by the actors, out of personal experience. Some we made up. Six scenes: Woman trying to talk to her father about an affair she was having with a married man; two women, one thin, one fat, exchange their bodies; a policeman interviews a veiled woman he suspects of being a terrorist; a woman who has just been raped talks with a friend; a woman confronts her mother; a young man discovers his fiance is not a virgin.

You could hear a pin drop, said a friend who watched it. Which is unusual because Moroccan audiences are notoriously edgy and not easily held. This lasted an hour. It seemed to work. What was significant was the degree to which the actors can improvise; the degree to which they don't need dialogue, merely emotional points to touch.

In the fall, we'll try for something more ambitious.