Monica Pajdak

Staff Writer

This past week, the Rutgers-NJIT theatre program held its production of Autobahn, by author Neil LaBute. Directed by Louis Wells, the play featured a series of seven scenes taking place between pairs of actors.

Each scene begins in the middle of a conflict and then progresses to slowly reveal the exact nature of that conflict and the history of the characters affected by it. This structure is not entirely unfamiliar. I can’t say how many times I’ve sat in the front seat of a car with someone I was in the middle of an argument with only to be subject to a kind of forced development to the situation that, no matter what, fell short of resolution.

Such development without resolution is exactly what we see in Autobahn, and even though the conflicts in the play are much darker and squirm-inducing that your everyday squabble, the arrangement does make the wild circumstances presented in each skit relatable.

Neil LaBute once said, “Hidden in the back seat of a sedan, I quickly realized how deep the chasm or intense the claustrophobia could be inside your average family car.” Deep chasm and intense claustrophobia are exactly the feelings clearly portrayed by the cast in each of the situations presented.

In the scene “Funny” viewers see the development of a relationship between a mother (Janelle Zapata) and her drug-addict daughter (Sam Glovin), who sharpens the divide between them by openly admitting that she would do everything in her power to relapse while nobody listens to the mother cry wolf.

In “Bench Seat” claustrophobia kicks in as a young man (Scott Kesselman) finds out about the psycho-stalker activities that his girlfriend (Jessica Santos) engages in with the last guy who dumped her.

In “road trip” we see a Driver’s Ed. Instructor (Jonathan Noto) taking his teenaged student (Marjani Smith) off to a cabin halfway across the country, who in her helplessness can do nothing more than sleep it off in the front seat until the car ride is over and she has no choice but to face the circumstances.

The striking scenarios in this play are nothing less than of the highest impact, and the actors’ abilities to fully and effectively convey their stories with little more than dialogue, silence, and a limited amount of time really attests to their skills as artists.

Considering other aspects of the play’s execution, mostly everything was done very well. The stage was set up with a movable, makeshift car behind which was a projection of footage of the road traveled. I can’t say I always followed the decision made with the footage.

For the most part, the settings established in the film were fitting to the scenarios, but one of the playlettes has a sort of split screen film behind it that sometimes matched up between sides and sometimes didn’t. I didn’t exactly understand the stylistic choice there, and it was a bit distracting, but otherwise all was well with the lighting and effects.

As usual, the set design was very immersive, with some props spilling over into the house, drawing the viewer s in all the more into the scene. I also really enjoyed the music and sound choices.

All in all, the production was very well executed and had a lot of impact. As any good production should, the show left me thinking about the plots and theme long after the play was over.

Mike Nusspickel

Web Editor

The NJIT-Rutgers theater group hosted a short play cycle by the name of Autobahn by Neil Labute over the weekend, an interesting and deep play that isn’t for everyone. Those who would enjoy it, however, will find it deep and extremely meaningful, and I applaud the theater group for yet another masterfully put on production.

You walked into the theater not quite knowing what to expect, finding yourself looking at a rather plain set with unusual pieces, with random car parts strewn about, and a mock front seat in the center, and this is where the entire play cycle takes place. Autobahn is not a play in the typical sense of things, in that its more a series of short stories, all taking place during a car drive, as the notes put it, ‘halfway from where they’re going from.’

What this setting allows is a highly realistic look into a situation we’re all familiar with: conversations in a car. There is something about this setting that we can all relate to, the idea of being trapped in a conversation you can’t get out of. What Autobahn does is drop you into these conversations with no context, the context of which you discover as you watch, learn, and listen to the characters, watching intently.

The show alternates between monologues and dialogues, although the monologues are not true monologues in that they’re talking to someone, who is simply either silent or whose response is unheard, and given only through expression. Our first glimpse, for example, is of a young woman speaking with a driver, whose relation is unknown to us at first. Is it her sister? Her mother?

As the speaking woman continues, we learn our first bit of context, in that she is being picked up from somewhere by her mother. Where, again, is unclear, vague just enough for the imagination to start up, and put in some of our own context, until we are given that last bit of information that it is some sort of rehabilitation center.

This sort of subtle introduction of the context of the situation we’re dropped into repeats itself each time, working in different fashions, such as the dialogues, which give us the information at the pace of two people interacting in the way we’re used to.

For example, the second dialogue gives us a scenario where a rather nonchalant woman appears to have been raped and is discussing with her husband, but we learn more and more through the drive that she not only consented, but that it was, in fact, not the first time such an event had occurred.

Although, even during the dialogues, each character has some quirks that we’re not used to, and facts are revealed more and more as the play goes on in a masterful portrayal of the darker side of the human condition. What you watch isn’t a play with much of a story, but people, with problems of the everyday, and issues that range from the simple to the deep, complicated, and sometimes utterly disturbing.

The play simply needs to be seen to truly understand, as it is not something with a simple plot, or a simple way of telling its stories. It uses language and body language as its defining features, something not usually found in plays where you have multiple characters, an arcing story, and a simple formula to follow.

The NJIT-Rutgers players once again wowed me with their ability to do a range of emotions and in this case a play that was so unconventional it impressed completely. I highly recommend the play as a read, and if you can ever find the play performed, to see it, if only for a change of pace.

Monica Pajdak is a Biology sophomore and can be reached at mpajdak@njitvector.com

Mike Nusspickel is a Computer Science sophomore and can be reached at mnusspickel@njitvector.com

This Sunday marked the closing of Rutgers–NJIT Theater Arts Program’s fall production of The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon at Rutgers-Newark’s Bradley Hall on a thrust stage in an extremely hot black box theater which seats about 200 people. The show is a two-act comedy written by Don Zolidis and directed by Cuchipinoy Productions, a young professional theater company composed of Rutgers and NJIT theater alumni. Zolidis’s script aims to tie together many of the classic Grimm fairy tales including Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and 206 others into a fast-paced comedic romp. Anchored by two narrators, one of each gender, the show presents itself as a pantomime which expects a great deal of audience participation. While the patrons begrudgingly partook in these “Blues Cluesian” moments, the show would have been better served to limit this sort of childish call and response and focus on making more jokes or making the ones that did exist better. The show also draws on vaudevillian influences, in which actors play many roles and are seen conversing out of costume, even deciding to modify the story in progress. While this playfulness does lend itself to a few comedic moments, the ensemble cast’s interactions as actors felt very staged, and ultimately lacked the intended improvisational style that was expected.

The sound design was passable, suffering only from some cheap and ineffective sound gags involving Mickey Mouse’s trademark chuckle, which are handled more adeptly in the script’s stage directions with a large sign. The set, a revolving backdrop that was modified between every scene, was simple, effective, and not distracting, which is a shame since I needed some distraction from the insipid experience of the show. The lighting and costume design were professional yet unremarkable; neither making a clear statement nor ruining the night. Worst though of all was the sheer length of the show, two acts with an intermission, sitting in a blistering hot theater praying for the show to end. The play was further marred by phony affectations, silly strobe kung-fu, inauthentic dialogue, mimed props, headache-inducing fog, ghetto Little Red Riding Hood, unfunny pedophilia, theatrical vomiting backstage, and an implied conceit that the actors thought they were much funnier than the audience did.

The show began slowly, continued slowly, and ended slowly, screeching to a grinding halt for two hours straight, and leaving the audience completely unsatisfied, hungry for the comedy they were promised. While there were quite a few good jokes in the script, they were often delivered so poorly or overacted to the point of histrionics that they were rendered humorless. I think the production’s fatal flaw was was it’s vapid and humdrum portrayal of fanciful tales of old, leaving the audience relieved, not by catharsis, but rather a means to escape the humorless prison in which they were detained. Even the melodramatic moments were so tedious and repetitious that they lacked any discernible pathos.

The actors were bereft of the emotional veracity and authenticity necessary to sell their choices and characters, and they seemed more focused on nonsensical stage business than conveying a coherent plot or theme to the audience. The performers seemed unaware of the speed and pacing requisite for the farcical comedy they endeavored to create, and so many of the jokes fell flat due to awkward timing, improper setups, and unclear choices that I was left unsure of whether they had been given any direction at all. Though, what I think was most tragic about this so called comedy is that Into to the Woods, one of Stephen Sondheim’s musicals, portrays many of the same stories in a cohesive, funny, and entertaining way, without sacrificing the Grimms’ original intent. If only audiences like the ones at NJIT, would start demanding higher quality theater, maybe, just maybe we would get it.

The only redeeming quality of The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon was the “lightning round”, a speedy recap of it’s own claptrap, all in under 5 minutes. Not that I would have paid ten dollars to see that alone, but I would certainly have paid to miss the rest of the show, which was an utter waste of two hours, and a surefire way to get headachy and sweaty on the weekend, as if there aren’t enough of those for free.

I recently had the pleasure of seeing the NJIT-Rutgers theater group’s production of something rather unusual. The Brother’s Grim Spectacularthon is a play that crams 209 of the Brother’s Grim’s collected fairy tales into a two and a half hour production, touching every major one that most of us know by heart: Snow White, Cinderella, Hansel and Grettle, Little Red Riding Hood, and then some.

The story opens with two narrators, one an energetic, eccentric young man and the other an enthusiastic girl. The two of them go through and string along the stories, each one holding an unexpected modern twist. Every character in the Cinderella skit is played by only two people, the female actress playing Cinderella, and the male actor playing every other role (regardless of male or female).

Little Red Riding Hood is portrayed as a tough girl raised “in the hood”. She pulls a pistol on the wolf when he tries to capture her. Rapunzel seems the typical whiny teenage brat, and every other character has hilarious twists to their personalities as well. The script itself is a riot, but the way the cast made the entire production so natural and seamless, with practically no break between jokes, left the audience, including myself, practically rolling out of our chairs.

The entire cast interacts with each other in a way that feels natural. None of the acting or behavior seemed forced, and the humor isn’t old. The script itself is very recent, giving the jokes a taste that greatly appeals to the college audience. My only complaint from the show I saw was that act two lacked a bit of the momentum act one did, but once it got rolling it was just as wonderful.

If you missed it for any reason, you missed something truly great. 5/5 hats.