Theatre Critique: Spring Harvest

Joseph F. Otteni

Professor Melissa Martin

Acting 180

12 December 2, 2013

Theatre Critique: Spring Harvest

On Saturday, November 27, 2013, I had the pleasure of watching, or as the director and writer T.S. Frank would say, "Conversing", with the Spring Harvest. At Olin theatre in a small college campus where there is not a dedicated theatre program produced a very well done play despite a few hardships of people dropping and the main actor struggling with English. The play is told from the point of Tony Lopez, played by Adrian Elizondo, who witnesses, and partakes in the struggles of college students at the prestigious McKinnley College.

The play starts out with a bang with Angela Reggio, played by Xan Sayers, accusing Peter Otto Browne III of raping her at the college party that happened last night to which Peter has no idea whether it happened or not. The entire play becomes a mystery as people start taking sides trying to uncover what really happened that Saturday night. It eventually becomes apparent to the end of the play that Pete did really commit the act, although it is not explicitly said; however, before Pete can be brought to justice his father Mr. J Edward Browne, played by James Kappas, hushes the whole thing making it go away. In the program T.S. Frank writes directly to the audience saying that, "The purpose of this play continues to be to start a conversation." To which I think he certainly met his purpose on Saturday being that I personally spent a half hour with my friends digesting and conversing about the play.

Being that the director and the writer are the same person in this case it is almost certain that T.S. Frank was able to interpret the meaning behind the play correctly. Even being comfortable enough with his own work to change the main role in order to fit the actor. Which I feel was a good change rather than continue in the script and try to hide Adrian's accent. It also added an interesting feel of class warfare within the obvious gender war. Even though Pete was a party animal-esc character he was able to get into Harvard because of the connections his father had. In contrast Tony came from a hard-working family, was barely able to afford college, and had to beg Pete to call his father for him so he could go to Harvard. I don't know how much the script was changed from the original to accommodate Adrian but it definitely added an undercurrent of tension.

The set design was just a series of simple platforms and six columns in the sides, while I was skeptical at first, but the platforms denoted rooms and at certain moments of the play you could almost see the individual boxes the actors were in; however, I feel that I could have been used more to bring out the power and dominance in relationships between the actors such as in the initial scene between Angela and Pete. The one part I liked about it was at certain times the main actor would