play review

Dealing with dark themes such as addiction, depression, and domestic abuse, the UOMTS’ version of American Idiot is both a bitter political screed and a testament to the importance of friendship and solidarity.

Directed by MFA candidate Pamela Feghali, the play tells the tale of four friends and their twisted experiences of insobriety and sabotage. The discourse surrounds the tribulations of the artist, whose beauty and talent causes both admiration and envy.

As the story takes audiences back into the past, we meet Jem, played by U of O alumna Carol Sinclair, and her father John, a fame-obsessed drunkard. Throughout the play, audiences watch as each character’s past unfolds, and how they struggle to find true meaning and faith in life.

One of the best things about this adaptation of the play, and of Shakespeare’s writing in general, is that despite its antiquity it remains fresh in the eye of the beholder. Shakespeare’s writing still seems as relevant today as it was in the 1600s because of Shakespeare’s ability to understand the core of people’s nature and depict it in his complex characterizations, said Gough.

What happens when a politician orders a murder to slip by in a vote? Comedy! And if Healey was aiming for a comedy he certainly succeeded, with a cast of hilarious characters, rants against Canadian Tire, a quest to find Triscuits, a splendidly performed awkward post-sex scene, rants against twenty-somethings and excellent use of the word “fuckwit.”