The Cave Theatre will encourage its audience to ponder the real meaning of justice with its rendition of Canadian playwright George F. Walker's "Problem Child." The four-person show starts at 7:30 tonight and runs through Saturday. Admission is $5.50.
"Problem Child" is the fifth in a set of six stand-alone plays in Walker's "Suburban Motel" series, which follows various dramatic scenarios that all include the same hotel room.
The story revolves around a couple's journey to reclaim custody of their daughter from Social Services. Denise, played by senior Laura Spalla, and R.J., played by sophomore Brad Root, are the distraught parents whose relationship begins to fall apart as they try every means possible — both legal and not — to be reunited with their child, Spalla said. Katie Ogle and Ethan Litt join them as social worker Helen and hotel manager Phillie.
Denise is the bold, headstrong one who will sacrifice herself to support those she loves, even in socially unacceptable ways like prostitution. R.J., her more conservative-minded husband, would rather try traditional methods and appeal to the system of justice as it already exists, Root said.
Spalla said it's this gap in personalities that forces the couple's relationship to evolve during the 70-minute production.
"With Denise and R.J., it's just frustration," she said. "He wants to get the child legally, and she is willing to do anything and everything, so of course that clashes. They do love each other, but their relationship keeps breaking and breaking. I think we can all relate to that frustration with someone we love."
Root's depiction of R.J.'s despair involved tapping into elements of his character's personality he had not experienced personally, like serving time in prison.
"I could easily see how he loves unconditionally, but I'm not violent like he is," he said. "The most difficult part of this process was relating to him."
Senior theatre major Jacob Ahrndt, director of "Problem Child," said the story's underlying message of justice is what sets the production apart from other Ball State University shows.
"It's about the idea of justice, how it's nonexistent, and how we have to create it ourselves," he said. "It also shows that the way they view justice in the play also exists in the real world."
Spalla said Walker's style of writing brings a lot of dark humor to the tense situation, despite the seriousness of the justice issue.
"I think the biggest appeal to college students is definitely the comedy," she said. "It's one of those things where you watch and laugh at some parts, then afterward you're not sure if you can, if it was the right part to laugh at."
Ahrndt described Walker's plays as a sense of heightened real life, in which the unlikely, interrelated situations of all six pieces somehow become believable.
"Sometimes the characters' stories overlap, but they all end up in the same room somehow," he said. "Although it's crazy on paper, it works because it does feel like real life."
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