The O-town Scene - Oneonta, NY
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/29770
Ryan Moore FROM LEFT: Actor Steven Diehl as a zombie hunter; Diehl and Lauren Cipriano stage a scene from ‘Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom,’ which will have performances at 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday at Slade Theater at Hartwick College. ‘Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom’ is an impressive undertaking for Hartwick actors, crew It’s all talk about distant children and concerned parents _ and zombies, “the game” and getting out of the neighborhood. You might liken Jennifer Haley’s “Neighborhood 3: Requisi- tion of Doom” to a cross between the Gerard Butler sci-fi flick “Gamer” and Academy Award winner “American Beauty.” “Neighborhood 3” has elements of both in its broken-suburban family, video-game obsessed, reality meets virtual reality narra- tive. The Hartwick College Department of English and Theatre Arts has tackled the complexities of the modern play, which opened Thursday, April 14, at Slade Theatre on the college campus. The cast includes just four actors _ a mother-type (Emmanuel- la Brakye), father-type (Mark deRoziere), daughter-type (Lauren Cipriano ) and son-type (Steven Diehl). The play utilizes those four types with its complicated script and multimedia elements, including video game screens, scenery projected onto blank walls, a voiceover narrative and an at times eerie soundtrack. The Hartwick performances takes place in an intimate setting, so intimate that risers for the audience have been erected on the Slade stage stadium-seating style to put the show’s messages right in the face of play-goers (who, because of the seating set- up, can also see down the low-cut shirts of the two female actors in several scenes, which was somewhat distracting). “Neighborhood 3” starts with each cast member coming on stage, greeting each other in an almost sarcastically enthusiastic and entirely fake manner, as if to set the show’s tone that sub- urban life is exactly that. The actors then hang items on two set pieces, which will be labeled weapons and inventory. From the opening dialogue, a video game where the goal is to kill zombies in a neighborhood that looks just like the one the gamers live in, is all anyone can talk about. The kids can’t stop playing it, and the parents don’t know what to do about their obsessed and increasingly distant and cynical offspring. As the gamers progress through each house in the neighborhood _ both within the reality of the play and within the virtual reality of the children’s games _ the two worlds start to influence each other. By the climax, the line has blurred to the point the audience isn’t sure if it’s watching the game or reality. Each of the student actors plays numerous characters with each role only lasting for a scene or two. All of the actors pro- duced quality performances. Brakye’s motherly type characters were standouts, and the Hartwick senior showed off her range as an actress with her multi-dimensional and emotional perfor- mances. Praise for the show can also be given to the behind the scenes crew in the staging of a heavy undertaking with the multimedia elements. Though a few glitches here and there were noticeable, the sheer difficulty of producing and running the technology side of the production added a lot to the modern play. The biggest downside of the show was the actual story/plot, which was unclear with what it wanted to say with so many ideas at work _ it wants to explore the disconnect between par- ents and children; it wants to look at violence in video games; it delves into addiction; it dabbles in how suburbia creates mind- less clone-like zombies; it revolves around reality and virtual reality melding. Each theme on its own could sustain countless works, but when all are mashed up together, it leaves the audience wondering what the message was. By the end, there is such a disconnect between the ideas being thrown around and the audience’s comprehension that some members in last Friday night’s crowd actually laughed at the climax. Who knows if it was supposed to be funny or devastating? Whatever it was supposed to do, it still got an audible response, and the complexities of the themes didn’t take away from the show’s entertainment value or excel- lent student performances. Hartwick College’s Department of English and Theatre Arts will finish up its run of the play this weekend with shows on Thurs- day, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Slade Theatre. _ Trevor Hayes By the climax, the line has blurred to the point the audience isn’t sure if it’s watching the game or reality. April 21, 2011 O-Town Scene 11