The Cave Theatre’s history of love stories shrinks away from light-hearted tales of blooming passion and delves into the dark, twisted aspects of relationships.
“The Woods” is no exception. The play premieres Tuesday at the Cave Theatre, which is Arts and Communications Building Room 007.
Director Hannah Hoopingarner, a junior theatre productions major, said she sees the play as a social experiment.
“The core of the show is getting two messed-up people and throwing them together,” Hoopingarner said. “‘The Woods’ strips away the facades the two had built up. It’s really beautiful when it gets down to the core.”
Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet wrote “The Woods” as a parable, a generic story relatable to everyone.
“The difficult part was to take the skeleton and flesh it out,” Hoopingarner said. “It’s been really hard to do.”
In the beginning scene, the two lovers, Nick and Ruth, talk absently to one another in their first day of staying at Nick’s cabin. The conversation flits from the beauty of the outdoors to human nature to ancient Vikings bashing in heads of newborns. However, something eerie hangs in the air during this “honeymoon phase,” as Hoopingarner calls it. From there, the dreamy love phase takes twisted, violent turns.
“It is as hard to be in as it is to watch,” Meghan Baker, a sophomore acting major, said. “It’s going to make the audience uncomfortable.”
Baker is an understudy for the character Ruth. Baker described Ruth as someone who is in love with someone that hurts the same way she does.
The characters are breathing contradictions, Hoopingarner said. Ruth is whimsical and naïve but tough, while Nick is vindictive but wants to be loved.
Junior acting major Jillian Leff plays Ruth, who gets the brunt of the violence and sexual assault that happens throughout the play. However, she and Ethan Strimple, who plays Nick, are good friends, so she never felt fearful during the performances.
“For the sexual violence, I treated it like choreography — like a dance,” Leff said.
She said “getting slapped sucks,” but she has learned to brace herself. Likewise, Strimple, a junior acting major, found it difficult to deal with the violence.
“I don’t enjoy physical conflicts, so I focus more on the mechanics more than the intention,” Strimple said.
During his performance, Strimple works in the duality of being the violent and angry Nick while focusing on being an actor trying not to harm his co-star.
“During the violence, my main focus is not killing her,” Strimple said.
The performance undulates in affectionate conversation to bouts of violence and desperation. Scary and dark things of each person’s past are dredged up. Throughout it, the characters go from wanting to escape each other to desperately needing each other.
“It’s something we’ve all gone through, the guy who treats you like dirt or the girlfriends that won’t shut up,” Hoopingarner said. “These are stereotypes, but they get broken in the end and you see them as actual people. It’s sad, but more people than you think can relate to the violence.”
While Leff has put her energetic qualities into Ruth, she has dredged up the feelings she’s had in negative, while not as extreme, relationships in the past.
“It’s a lot of taking my own experiences and putting them into these situations,” Leff said. “It’s a dark place to go, but after the show you just have to laugh it off.”
One way the crew and cast has gotten though the strenuous preparation process is the tradition of Zebra Cakes at each meeting. Hoopingarner said the snack cake ritual keeps the strenuous production process fun.
“It is such an intense process that sometimes you just need a nice, comforting Zebra Cake,” Baker said.
Between trying to lighten the mood of what seems like a dark future for the characters, the actors find resolution in the character transformations. Baker said she sees hope in Ruth’s last stand.
“She kicks some serious ass by the end of the play,” Baker said.
While Hoopingarner finds it hard to watch two people destroy each other, she said this is a real portrayal of love.
“Love isn’t always a pretty ‘rom-com’ love story,” Hoopingarner said. “It’s sometimes harsh and gritty.”
The play gives a look into two people’s lives that isn’t always seen.
It’s the age-old question: “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” No one is witness to the destruction of two people’s lives, and it’s left up to the audience what will happen when they re-enter society.
“Not every relationship is the way it looks. We are different when we are alone,” Leff said. “No one is going to know what happened in those woods.”
What: “The Woods”
When: 7:30 p.m. today-Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Saturday-Sunday
Where: Cave Theatre
Cost: $6
