A bachelorette party on an epic bar crawl, boys out on the town with love on the mind, and all taking place in the city that never sleeps? What doesn’t the Drunken City have? This play by Adam Bock will be performed by SOU theater students here at the Center Square Theater on campus for the next two weeks starting today, Nov. 6.
The Drunken City tells the story of a bachelorette party containing three brides-to-be on a crazed bar crawl. Everything seems to be going great until a handsome stranger causes one of them to doubt their marriage plans. Emily Serdahl, who plays Marnie, one of the brides-to-be, described the play as being about friendship and “dealing with love in a realistic way.” Beth Boulay, who will be playing one of the other brides-to-be named Linda, felt similarly saying that it deals with “relationships and how we can get in the way of them.”
The play The Drunken City combines many elements into the performance including poetry and inner monologue creating a somewhat surreal experience which is interwoven within the story. According to Jackie Apodaca, the director of the play and the head of the performance faculty here at SOU, “I was particularly attracted to Bock’s almost Brechtian use of the monologue, in which characters snap out of a shared reality and address the audience directly with glimpses into their inner life. This juxtaposition of the public and private self in the midst of a drunken night can be shocking, puzzling, and certainly thought-provoking.”
Apodaca said that she feels the play will be very relatable for students. It is contemporary, more akin to modern television and Broadway performances, and since the characters are all “twenty-somethings” dealing with love and identity, students will really be able to identify with the characters.
The six cast members of the play have been studying and working with each other through their whole theater career here at SOU, and this will be their last performance together. According to Serdahl, this is a great ending piece for the troop. She explained that there’s no main role per say, and so everyone gets about equal amounts of stage time. “It’s truly an ensemble show.” Boulay concurred, saying, “It’s all about making choices and deciding where you’re going which is what we are going to be doing soon too.”
All the actors from the play will be going on to apprentice at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival next year.
Student tickets for the Drunken City will cost $6. Tickets for community members are $21 and $18 for seniors. Performances are Nov. 6-8 and Nov. 13-15 at 8 p.m. There will be two matinee performances on Nov. 15 and 16th at 2 p.m.
