NCC student play explores the villain in all of us
There's a little bit of a villain in everyone, says writer Ross McIntire.
You. Me. The world — it's everywhere.
But in McIntire's one-act play, “Blight,” which opens Thursday at North Central College, having so many villains upsets the natural balance of the theater — in a good way, he said.
“There are a lot of interesting conventions, and this show plays with how we picture right and wrong and the traditional hero-villain dichotomy that plants itself deep in our minds of how we expect the story might go,” he said.
The North Central senior's self-written and self-directed production opens at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 12, in the Madden Theatre at the Fine Arts Center, 171 E. Chicago Ave. in Naperville.
When a factory shuts down in a small Midwestern town, residents are faced with the sad reality of a dying town.
One of the workers was injured and never received compensation from the factory. He hires a lawyer to sue the factory's owner, who ultimately has no money to pay the injured worker. All of the main characters end up in a little bar where they're forced to confront each other.
People want clear villains, but in this story, everybody has a little villain in them — even the injured worker, said McIntire, of Galva, Ill.
“The villain in this play is the world. All of these people are just normal people who have had unfortunate circumstances,” he said. “So I've kind of written it in a way that you sympathize with all of them. You've all made your mistakes, but no one in this play is perfect.”
McIntire and his seven actors strive to replicate real life as much as possible, he said.
So when a crew member suggested syncing the bar's jukebox to fit various moments of the play, McIntire passed.
“You can't expect the bar music to fit the situation,” he said. “That's how theater tries to best mimic real life and leave it to the movies to take on the more fantastical.”
The set mixes minimalism with realism, McIntire said, keeping the bar's set to a plain table and chairs and a bar, but letting other details speak for themselves — like what each bar patron chooses to drink.
There's one character in the play — the bartender — who breaks through the theater's fourth wall to speak directly to the audience and fill in the back story of the characters without a putting it in the dialogue.
“I don't like when characters try to slip in facts about themselves. I don't like unmotivated exposition — the sort of thing that soap operas do where they slip in the back story in dialogue,” McIntire said.
As the bartender, 18-year-old Chelsey Walker of Plainfield knows everything — much like bartenders in real life.
“Everybody else is a concrete person, whereas we refer to Melissa as more of a ghost,” Walker said. “She is kind of an all-knowing and all-seeing character.”
Finding a distinction between Melissa as the bartender and Melissa talking to the audience has been a fun challenge.
“She can't sound too lecture-y, but she can't sound too passive,” Walker said. “They'll enjoy the yelling. There's lots of yelling.”
The one-act format keeps everything moving at a fast clip.
“With it being just 55 minutes of everything-is-happening, there's no dull points or lulls,” she said. “It's really enthralling.”
“Blight” runs at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Tickets are $5 for adults, $3 for students and seniors. For information, call (630) 637-SHOW or visit northcentralcollege.edu/showtix.
If you go
If you go
What: “Blight”
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday to Saturday, April 12, 13 and 14
Where: North Central College's Madden Theatre at the Fine Arts Center, 171 E. Chicago Ave., Naperville
Cost: $5 adults, $3 students and seniors
Info: (630) 637-SHOW or northcentralcollege.edu/showtix