Marquette University passionately examines the complexities of sexual assault in the one-hour stage drama Student Body. Frank Winters’ script echoes the style of 12 Angry Men as a group of students from a small town college deliberate with each other about whether or not they’re going to give police video footage of a rape that took place at a student party.
Director Leda Hoffmann fosters an engrossingly organic energy with a cast that ricochets around an intimate space. The play is entirely set in one hour of time in the place where it is staged, a college theater. Students play students. Traditional seating has been eschewed in favor of drawing everyone closer together. Cast and audience all occupy the same space onstage as revelations come to light about each of the characters and their relationships.
So much can get lost in an ensemble of 10 with everyone onstage for a full hour. Student Body doesn’t allow anything to hide, though. Hoffman makes sure we see everything. The play is one long relentless scene. The script delivers the story as a single conversation from beginning to end. Ten characters have to work out what to do and we have to watch them do so. No one is leaving until we can work out the fate of a few characters who represent everyone who has ever been involved in a sexual assault as a victim, perpetrator or bystander. Complicit or not, we’re all a part of this problem as audience, actors and characters. Under these circumstances, even the smallest, seemingly simple details can become breathtakingly frustrating as depths of emotional reality explode across the stage.
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Through Feb. 25 at Helfaer Theatre, 525 N 13th St. For tickets, visit www.marquette.edu/theatre-tickets.
