Student-produced one-act explores the good stuff

Wake up, Oberlin. There is a connection between silence, blondes in boxes, the secret to flying and exploding frogs. You can find it in dreams - specifically The Stuff that Dreams are Made On, written and directed by college first-year Michael Barthel.

The play explores the construction of dreams through many voices and spaces. "The idea is that it's a night of dreams," explained Barthel. "Some are weird, some are scary, some are funny. There's memories and there's reflections. It doesn't all make sense, but neither do dreams."

The concept of building dreams is explored through monologues, sound and carefully chosen props. Barthel combines sharp detail with lyrical prose to create vignettes with an aura fantasy and realism at the same time. Scenes take place in dusty garages, shopping malls and on clouds. The voices of a paranoid, a loner, a murderer and an animal-torturer are heard throughout the production. New scenarios are presented along with scenes of flying and being chased - both situations are generally considered to be common dreams - and are twisted and given surprising and new endings.

The play is being put on with the support of the Oberlin Student Playwrights, a new organization that seeks to produce student-written plays. Barthel originally wrote and produced Dreams in high school, and continued to revise it until he got the opportunity to put on a play at Oberlin.

As the actors "build" the dream, they build the set, each actor bringing to the stage a prop to represent an object in their dream. The incorporation of two audio taped monologues playing simultaneously presents the meaning of words and sounds.

The 15 monologues were performed by an assembly of first-years Justin Sifford-Angotti, Areca Treon, Alexander Weiss-Richmond, Gabriel Carleton-Barnes, Mateo Asbun, Michael Cardiff, Catherine Pospisil and Elizabeth Bernstein, sophomores Elizabeth Dadabo, Jonathan Curley and Sarah Myers, and double-degree first-year Alton Hall. These actors faced the challenge of not presenting characters, but speech.

The play jumps from monologue to monologue with no obvious sense of cohesion, much like the often random sequencing of dreams. The actors' performances, combined with the lack of traditional characters, plot, dialogue or staging, helps create a dreamlike mood.

The dreams we can't remember and the ones we can't forget are presented from a unique and fresh perspective in this production.

What if the quiet girl enjoys her silence? What if being a roadie for a mediocre band or fathering illegitimate children is a career goal? Have you ever thought you were somebody else? The monologues presented answer these questions, but the play raises many more. This Stuff is a definite dinner conversation starter, so don't sleep this weekend away.

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made On, a one-act play, shows in Wilder Main tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m. Admission is free.