Joel Thomas, Guest Writer
Pacific Lutheran University starts the 2014-2015 theatre season by questioning reality.
“The Play About the Baby,” written by playwright Edward Albee, (“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and “The Zoo Story”) centers around Boy and Girl, a young couple madly in love with each other.
With the addition of a newborn baby, Boy and Girl live a perfect life until Man and Woman enter the scene. They throw Boy and Girl into a world of confusion by mixing fact with fiction and calling into question the existence of their beloved baby.
Under the direction of junior Jessi Marlow, this dark comedy features junior Nick Peterson as Boy, sophomore Arika Matoba as Girl, first-year Dane Ostlie-Olson as Man and junior Jessica Lenczycki as Woman.
While both Boy and Girl are naĂŻve and live in a happy world, Man and Woman serve as the driving force of the conflict, with Man acting as narrator and Woman as his counterpart.
“It’s a story about transformation and loss of innocence,” Ostlie-Olsen said. “Over the course of the show, Man and Woman cause Boy and Girl to become much more aware about the world.”
Marlow said “The Play About the Baby” is a show no one should miss.
“The audience will take away a level of understanding,” Marlow said, “a realization that we all have hardships and that’s perfectly okay. The audience will learn to appreciate the humor in different situations.”
Onstage Oct. 10-11, this year’s theatre season kicks off with a bang with “The Play About The Baby” in the Karen Hille Phillips Center Studio Theatre.