ERIN FLOM
Guest Writer
Scared of bugs? Then get ready to be frightened by the events of “Bug,” Pacific Lutheran University’s second-to-last play for this year’s theater season, opening April 17.
“This play just grabs you and doesn’t let go of you,” said director, Cameron Waters, a junior. “The entire time you’re wondering ‘What’s going on? What’s gonna happen?’”
Senior Katherine Mahoney plays Agnes, the show’s lead.
“She’s had a rough life. She comes from a history of multiple abuses,” Mahoney said. “She finds comfort in this new guy, Peter, who seems to be almost her knight in shining armor, except for the fact that he’s brought a bug infestation with him.”
The play deals with abuse, paranoia and manipulation.
“I think the most difficult thing is portraying these things without it seeming forced or fake,” Mahoney said, “because these are real issues and while these characters aren’t real, they very well could be real people somewhere.”
Waters added that, when talking about these issues, “you tend to get very abstract and people don’t like talking about the specifics, and I think theater really forces us to look at the specifics.”
Sophomore Arika Matoba plays R.C., Agnes’s friend.
“I had never done anything like this before,” Matoba said. “In theater we have our types –– you know, when you’re typecast –– so my type is usually the younger sort of character or the more innocent, sweet sort of character, so I really wanted to be part of the show because it’s very gritty, dirty and just very intense.”
The student-run performance takes place in the black box in Karen Hille Phillips Center. Waters said the black box draws in the audiences.
“It brings everybody in and makes them witnesses to what’s going on, more than just removed spectators.”
Waters wants students to see the play because it’s “good to see things that stretch your boundaries a little bit and get you to think about the way that we treat each other.”
