DAVIS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER– Georgetown has long been proud to be the home of a thriving arts scene, and been ashamed for an equally long time to be home to a thriving student art scene. Various theater organizations have a history of putting on wonderful productions, from Tony Karam’s Speech and Debate to Qui Nguyen’s She Kills Monsters.  It would be easy to doubt this, given the prevalence of staged Dumpster Fires, like Mask and Bauble’s “Excursions to the Edge of Life: The Tale of an Egret (How Much Can An Elephant Weigh)”.

The playwright, Nate Gibbons (COL ‘20) described the play as an important commentary on class and gender in 1970’s Britain, one that “would shock the audience, just as much as it would challenge them”. Audience members called it “lengthy” and “egregiously student-written”.  A particularly bold choice was made by the lead actor, who elected not to deliver any of his lines at all, in a self-described attempt to “tear down the walls of theater, and call into question the nature of performance”. The audience, which consisted solely of people whose relationships with members of the cast were too close to get out of coming, gave the production a standing ovation, in that they happened to be on their way out already when the cast took their bows.