Passersbys in the Residence Commons halls might not realize that behind the door of room 214 a psychiatrist on the brink of sanity and an isolated drifter with a method to his madness are taking center stage.
Room 214 is the home of Sock ‘n’ Buskin theatre company’s one-act double bill which features a performance of third-year Carleton student Matt Hertendy’s It’s What Doctor Jenkins Would Have Wanted followed by Edward Albee’s 1958 classic The Zoo Story.
While the productions are different, they both feature desperate characters trying to communicate—with darkly humorous results.
In Hertendy’s play, a madcap psychiatrist takes the concept of exposure therapy to absurd extremes with his own brand of “Shock and Horror Integration Therapy.” The doctor becomes increasingly unhinged as the play progresses, experiencing frequent flashbacks to when he and his wife ran a clinic together.
Hertendy said Dr. Smart’s theatrical methods speak to his own experience with “using theatre as a therapy of sorts.”
He said the play “speaks to the love for theatre and how it has power to make things better.”
Hertendy said he hopes Sock ‘n’ Buskin will stage more plays by Carleton students in the future.
“I’m really trying to encourage Carleton students to come to us with plays they write,” he said.
The second production of the evening is Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story. The play is about an ordinary family man named Peter, whose peaceful afternoon of reading is interrupted by a man named Jerry who tells long, intimate stories about his childhood, his sex life, and his efforts to befriend a dog that lives in his apartment building.
“You don’t have to listen,” Jerry says at one point. “Nobody is holding you here. Remember that.”
Despite deep discomfort Peter stays.
“He’s so shocked by the situation that’s so totally different from his own life that . . . he can’t break himself away,” actor Kosta Diochnos, who played Peter, explained.
Jerry is “an incredibly difficult character to play,” actor Ian Gillies said.
“It’s such an uncomfortable thing. I don’t know how many times I’ve had somebody talk to me at the bus stop and I hate it,” he said.
The interaction between Peter and Jerry eventually escalates from discussion to physical confrontation. Co-director Duncan Chalmers said it was important for the fighting to seem real—so Gillies actually slaps Diochnos in the face repeatedly during the show.
“I always feel bad,” Gillies said.
“My ears were ringing afterwards,” Diochnos laughed.
Gillies said Jerry’s painfully honest stories explore questions that most people are “just not brave enough to ask.” He said Jerry’s isolation and need for communication is recognizable for anyone.
“He’s a stuck character, he feels like he can’t advance anywhere. I think that’s an enduring emotion,” Gillies added.
Co-director Jake Pitre said the play is really about “being able to be understood somehow . . . If some crazy guy is spouting some crazy shit at you you’re not necessarily going to pay attention to him. So I think it’s about being open to understanding.”
It’s what Doctor Jenkins Would Have Wanted and The Zoo Story ran in Residence Commons room 214 until Feb. 28.
