Victoria Velazquez, Staff Writer

Student Play Brings Audience to the Brink of Adventure

A vibrant cast and crew from Notre Dame’s Department of Film, Television and Theater (FTT) bring to life a story of adventure and yearning in the student-run production of Eric Overmyer’s On The Verge, or, The Geography of Yearning.

On The Verge opened on Thursday, October 3 at the Philbin Studio Theatre in the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, and after a successful run of shows, promises to delight audiences again the weekend of October 10-13.

In the show, three stalwart female adventurers tread forth from Victorian America to the land of “Terra Incognita,” and unexpectedly find themselves traveling through the unfamiliar landscape of time.  Armed with keen machetes and even sharper wordplay, Mary, Alexandra and Fanny meet everything from cannibals to Cool Whip with spunk and poise.

“Ladies,” says one character at the start of the adventure, “Shall we bushwhack?”

When the department approached her with the opportunity to direct a student production, senior Renée Roden, double majoring in FTT and theology, said she did not have to think hard about which show she would choose.

“This show was given to me by one of my dearest mentors in high school.  She told me, ‘You should definitely do this show someday.’  So I put it in my pocket,” Roden recalled.

The characters’ eloquent use of language makes it easy to see what attracted Roden to Overmyer’s production.  Performed in an intimate theater with a simple set, the play paints a kaleidoscopic scene purely through its rich language.  Words like “vertiginous” or “peregrination,” which would ordinarily initiate a consultation with a dictionary, characterize the play with a refreshing intellect.

Katie Mullins, Emily Dauer and Elizabeth Charles energetically portray the three women who discover that their imaginings and ambitions can surmount the restraints of time and place.  The trio communicated with sincerity the joy of discovery and handled the eccentric words with ease.

A fourth actor, David Diaz, nimbly plays the roles of eight eclectic characters, including a puzzling cannibal, adorable yeti and charismatic nightclub owner.  The interactions between the three very feminine Victorian women and each of Diaz’s characters are hilarious and endearing.

Roden said that she enjoyed working with such a small group of people to create the show.

“One of my favorite things to watch is human beings interacting onstage,” Roden said.  “When actors are doing their job of fleshing out and putting their characters onstage, then the director’s job is to arrange everything so that they can do that.”

Although the adventurers develop the strong bond of sisterhood, each woman possesses a fierce sense of individuality.  Alexandra constantly displays a faulty, though promising talent for writing song lyrics.  At times her word medleys result in hilarious nonsense, but her ponderings often strike upon rich deposits of meaning.  In one whimsical monologue, her toying with the word “imaginative” prompts listeners to consider the role of imagination in the show.

The imaginative nature of the women paints a picture of their adventure for the audience, and it drives the action from their start in Terra Incognita to their arrival in the 1950s.  When describing the women’s “incurable wanderlust,” Roden related the women’s perspectives to those of her own.

“The show is very focused on the future, which all the women have different feelings towards,” Roden said.  “As seniors and college students in general, because we have to make a lot of decisions, we’re inclined to think a lot about the future.  It resonates in particular with college students.”

As forward-minded adventurers, Mary, Alex and Fanny do not conform to the expectations of women in their own era.  It is their desire for something just out of sight that drives them to dauntlessly traverse the borders of both time and space.

According to her director’s note in the program, Roden found On The Verge to “capture the essence of theatre” as a journey.  As an FTT and theology double-major, she understands how relevant the story of a journey is in everyday life.

“Theater is one of the most fundamental arts,” Roden said.  “The primary story of creation is God’s love for us, and storytelling is God’s chosen way of revealing Himself.  Theater is fundamentally about storytelling, and theology is about the individual person who is revealed through stories.”

As a whole, On The Verge beautifully portrays the transformative journey of three women with resolve, intelligence and unapologetic femininity.  Between sparkling diction, miscellaneous “artifacts” and enchanting diary-entry monologues, it whisks audience members through a captivating journey of joyful discovery.

After witnessing the characters’ whimsical and sometimes ridiculous encounters with mythical creatures and the wonders of Jacuzzis, an audience member cannot help but realize that somewhere between manioc and rock-and-roll, they found within themselves a deep yearning for adventure.

Roden knows better than anyone else the relevance of the show’s portrayal of yearning: “We find ourselves caught on the turn of a dime, and we’re on the verge of something. When you’re yearning, that’s your geography, just on the verge of what you can’t see.”

Victoria Velasquez is a freshman and aspiring English major. She loves theatre and enjoys writing about any and every aspect of it. This is her first time writing for the Rover. Contact Victoria at vvelasq2@nd.edu