SOPHIA ROOKSBERRY
Staff Writer
When Jenny Connell Davis’ alma mater, the University of Chicago, approached her last summer to participate in a summer playwriting residency, she immediately began brainstorming ideas that were of interest to her and would entice the university community.
“The thing we came to was conversations that feel very contemporary about censorship,” Connell Davis said. “… What can be said? What can’t be said? Who decides? What does overt censorship look like versus softer censorship or self censorship? … Those questions felt really alive and electric to me, and they made me mad.”
Connell Davis approached the answers to these questions by writing a play within a lighthearted genre — more specifically, “a comedy about office supplies and fascism” that became ERASERS: A Bloodthirsty Comedy, to be presented at 2 p.m. today in Roe Green Theater Center as the summer’s second FutureNow New Play Lab.
“ERASERS uses satire and various forms of comedy to talk about fascism,” Bronwen Carson, the play’s director, said. “I kept envisioning what happens when frogs are boiled alive … I think we’re seeing it right now, this boiling of our atmospheric water, our societal water, and the powers that be are trying to normalize things that are horrific. I was really drawn to [this play], but since it’s such an intense topic, I thought it was really smart to use satire and different forms of comedy to explore that.”
Carson was drawn to this project both by her existing relationship with Connell Davis from a past project and the opportunity to hone her skills as a director of new work.
“Across America, there are playwright-based fellowships … but this fellowship is explicitly equal partnership of the director and the playwright, and so in that way, it’s brand new,” Carson said. “It’s never been done before. That was the main thing that drew me to it — working with a playwright in a more collaborative way from an earlier stage.”
Throughout the rehearsal process, other members of the company have been made privy to the teamwork that fuels the fellowship. Emma Battle, stage manager for both New Play Labs, has enjoyed witnessing the evolution of the play as the minds of Carson and Connell Davis continue to meld.
“Jenny’s work paired with Bronwen’s is such a treat, because the script in itself … is hysterical, then Bronwen’s directing adding on top of it this farce and physical comedy,” Battle said. “… Being able to put all of those things into a script that really could just stand on its own is just so delightful.”
Unlike The Bone Wars, the prior New Play Lab that largely prioritized facts and historical context, the focus of ERASERS is the timing of corporeal comedy — a challenging enough task without the limited resources and timeline of the program.
“It begins as a quiet comedy, but by the end it is a slam-door farce,” Connell Davis said. “We are doing it with a maximum of one door, so … thank God for my brilliant director, Bronwen Carson. She is figuring out how to solve a slam-door farce in a thrust space with only one door when the script requires three, but that’s the nature of the lab. We’re running that experiment, and if it can hold up to that, then it can hold up to a lot.”
According to Battle, almost half of the script was staged after the first day of rehearsals, allowing the cast to dedicate themselves to pacing and comedic delivery. However, with a play like ERASERS, another challenge quickly presented itself in the need for an audience.
“The challenges and the highlights lie in the comedy of it,” Battle said. “I think it can be really challenging to be rehearsing a comedic piece in a room where there is no laughter … but that’s also really the joy of it, because when there is a moment that just like clicks … and flows perfectly, and the actors are really in it with each other, that’s certainly the highlight.”
Presenting this play to an audience will not only help the actors land the comic elements, but it will also serve as another collaborative puzzle piece for Connell Davis as she nears the finish line of the workshopping process.
“I’ll be listening during the show for laughs, and then I’m really going to be listening after the show for what are the ideas that people are latching onto and engaging with, and maybe arguing with me about,” Connell Davis said. “It’s not a simple idea.”
Chautauqua Theater Company will present ERASERS: A Bloodthirsty Comedy four times over the course of the weekend, providing multiple chances for Chautauquans to experience the offbeat play and internalize some of the broader implications offered by Connell Davis’ script.
“On top of it being so humorous, it’s just such a great commentary of the world right now,” Battle said. “It’s really reflective. I find myself leaving rehearsal every day thinking more about the way that we work and the things going on in our world right now. I think that pairing those two things together of the humor, but also the introspectiveness, is just so beautiful.”
