A month after Edward Albee graced Memorial Hall with his common hour lecture, his work will take the stage in Wish Theater as Masque and Gown presents his Pulitzer Prize-nominated "The Play About the Baby" tonight and Saturday.
The play was written and first performed in England in 1998 and it premiered off-Broadway in the United States in 2001. It will have its Bowdoin premiere under the direction of Caitlin Hylan '09.
Hylan, along with about 30 other theater/dance students, met with Albee when he visited campus to speak at Common Hour one month ago.
"He's not exactly an open book," she said of meeting Albee. "Of course, he doesn't have to be. He's Edward Albee."
Despite his understated manner, Albee's presence still gave Hylan perspective on "The Play About the Baby."
"I'd be willing to wager that most or all of Edward Albee's plays are about Edward Albee," she said. "So that was, though I'm sure he had no idea, perhaps the most useful insight we garnered from our meeting with him," she said.
Hylan did research on the play before beginning work on the production; however, Albee was quick to discourage any kind of research that might "tamper with [her] individuality and creativity," according to Hylan.
Hylan said that Albee also emphasized that each director should take his or her own approach to the play.Hylan took these words to heart.
"I have never seen another production of the play. While I would like to for the sake of curiosity and education, it's important that this production be our production," she said.
The idea of individualizing the production of plays works well in "The Play About the Baby" because it involves 20-year-olds, their stories, and what developments and transformations they undergo as they enter adulthood.
The play, which Hylan described as "absurdist," concerns a young couple, who, after having just had a baby, are visited by an older couple who initiate a strange turn of events.
Hylan mused on the irony of producing the play in a college context.
"While on the one hand, a handful of 20-year-olds doing a play about how 20-year-olds are basically unprepared to take any sort of valid place in the real world is fairly absurd, I wanted a play that focused on young people?what their stories are, what processes they undergo in coming to adulthood," she said. "It's a useful, if potentially somewhat disheartening, I admit, meditation on where we are in are lives and where we intend to go."
While Hylan acknowledges the many challenges that she has faced along the way, she is pleased with how the process of directing the play has gone for her. Her cast is especially "intelligent and highly receptive," according to Hylan.
Although the cast only consists of four actors, it includes students from three different years: Katherine Sherman '09 as "Girl," Joseph Babler '10 as "Boy," Khalil LeSaldo '11 as "Man," and Christine Carletta '10 as "Woman."
"The Play About the Baby" will be performed on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. in Wish Theater and is open to the public. Tickets are $1 and are available at the Smith Union Info Desk.