The Flu Season takes the audience through a play, as it develops as a play while the actors are subjected to comments and changes as directed by two side characters, Prologue and Epilogue. Romance develops between two mental patients, and concurrently between a doctor, a few degrees short of 98.6, and a nurse who routinely revels in her lost youth, sending chills of laughter through the audience. The cast brilliantly brought the 2004 Oppenheimer Award winning play by Will Eno to life under the direction of Associate Professor of Theater, Jim Tompkins.
Professor Tompkins comments, “Not so much a play-within-a-play as a play-about-the-state-of-being-a-play” when asked about the production. Tompkins further comments, “the stage directions were non-existent, all that had to be invented”. To aid in said invention, Tompkins cast Conrad Newman, a MFA in Performance student as a contrary, yet literal young mental hospital commit. Newman's stage presence uses voice inflections and strong stature to help the audience wrap their heads around this at times baffling production. Opposite Newman, Deanna Gillespie plays the fragile young lady; feeling abandoned and lonely in the mental facility. Gillespie's use of facial expressions, notably batting her eyes, helps the audience to relate to her delicate state; although her willful tone allows the audience to see her character's potential for growth as the play progresses.
Three separate and different dichotomies develop through the course of the play, bringing the audience to appreciate every word spoken. The play required the audience to think about the words, the body language, and the setting; bringing all elements together to grasp the subtle, yet important elements of this production. The cast of six, along with the audience were lost in the walls of a mental institution for two hours, finding themselves in fleeting moments of love and belonging.
