A (Not Spoiler-Free) Review of ‘The Veri**on Play’
The cast of The Veri**on Play pose for a photo. (Grace Jurchak/The Gettysburgian)
By Nathaniel Swindell, Staff Writer
Photos by Grace Jurchak, Director of Photography
From Thursday to Sunday, “The Veri**zon Play,” written by playwright Lisa Kron, was performed at Kline Theatre. The play was directed by theater arts professor Susan Russell, a Fulbright scholar who earned her Ph.D. in drama at the University of Washington.
The play is a comedy focusing on something we all know and dread — dealing with customer service. It follows a comedic but relatively simple story: a woman named Jenni finds out her phone service has given her a ridiculous bill, and the play deals with her attempts to get rid of it and her encounters with people who find themselves in similar predicaments.
The merits of the play can be discussed for as long as the production went on itself. For starters, the work on the set shows clear deliberation. From the very first scene, which created two elaborate staircases covered with lights, the set design truly made the play shine, sometimes literally.
Although the play technically does not have many sets, consisting only of a park bench, a small area and the two aforementioned staircases, it does a terrific job in utilizing these three to the fullest extent, with the staircase serving as a room for a party, a support group and a stage throughout the production. The creative usage of the sets were certainly a highlight of “The Veri**on Play.”
Another aspect of the play that is worthy of praise is the way the members of the cast performed their characters. At one point Selah Hess ’27 is playing two separate twins in a single scene and pulls it off in a manner that is both creative and funny for the audience. The play was performed quite well in this aspect, and the cast members were certainly not lacking in their performances.
When it comes to matters regarding critique, there are a few aspects that should be mentioned, although they are minor details at worst. The lengths of some of the scenes, of which there are 14 in all, varied greatly throughout the play. This made them feel somewhat uneven and sometimes left me guessing if a scene had truly ended and moved into another or if it had simply changed directions.
As previously mentioned, the content of these scenes hold no complaints within them, but in my personal opinion the play could stand to improve by having the scenes be of more equal length. This is particularly the case with scene eight, during which the lights dimmed two consecutive times before it ends and made me question if it was supposed to denote the transition to another scene.
Secondly, near the climax of the play, the main group is on a mission to rescue a hostage but is interrupted by a series of events where they travel all across Europe (and Russia) and are faced with numerous customer-service related issues, ranging from ATM’s to crazed babushka’s stealing their food. While the humor of the scene, like with many other moments, is certainly not lost, the whole moment felt slightly out of place and rather unnecessary, especially when the story emphasizes the importance of rescuing the hostage as soon as possible.
Is it a commentary on customer service over the world or a moment thrown in just to be zany? Whatever the case, it is a rather funny but still strange moment, which left me pondering about its purpose long after the play ended — which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Overall, The Veri**zon Play is a production that accurately captures common frustrations of the customer service experience while heaping on a generous helping of social commentary about how much people have let giant companies into their lives and how much they control them. While there are a few moments in this reviewer’s mind that could use fixing, as a whole, the play is quite enjoyable and humorous, with a few twists and turns that added to the experience.
See photos of the production below:
