Years of planning and preparing, countless hours of filling out applications, hundreds and hundreds of dollars in fees, patient waiting for that acceptance letter and the feeling of doing whatever it takes. What sounds like college applications is actually the application process for a preschool in the play Basement Arts production of “Bright Ideas.”
Bright Ideas
Tomorrow and Friday at 7 and 11 p.m.
Walgreen Drama Center, Studio One
Free
Eric Coble’s play is a dark comedy that students can relate to and appreciate at different levels. It describes a couple’s relationship and struggle to get their toddler son into one of the most prestigious preschools around.
The parents, Josh and Gen Bradley, played by MT&D sophomore Nick Skardarasy and Zoe Kanters, an LSA sophomore who is also an MT&D freshman, take extreme measures to ensure their son Mac enters into the preschool — no matter the cost.
“(The play is) about the lengths they’re willing to go to get their son into a great school and the aftermath of that decision with all the craziness it involves,” play director and MT&D sophomore Emily Lyon said.
In the first act, Gen is speaking with her wealthy co-worker, who, after purchasing an aquatics room for Bright Ideas Early Childhood Development Academy, has guaranteed her son a spot in the school.
Since Gen and Josh aren’t as rich, they freak out. In a frenzy, the pair decides to invite Gen’s co-worker over to dinner and proceed to murder her with poisoned pesto, since Mac is next in line on the waitlist for the preschool.
The rest of the play is a consequence of this decision and ends with a bang at Mac’s fourth birthday party.
Though there is a strong emphasis on the children, the audience never actually sees any of them on stage. In addition, all actors, aside from Gen and Josh, serve as multiple characters, wearing different outfits — adding a new layer of humor to the story.
Lyon described Gen as a typical mother who succumbs to the pressures of perfection for both herself and her son and becomes consumed with the new power and paranoia she found by eliminating someone.
Josh balances her out as the dweeb who reads Oprah Magazine, does yoga and develops a drinking problem as the play progresses. Skardarasy described his character as a strange and intriguing guy who progressively breaks out of his mold.
“It’s fun to play a character who has all these different elements,” Skardarasy said. “He has sadistic elements, but he’s also fun, kind of goofy and at the same time very human.”
The whole play also echoes Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” in terms of minute details like Gen and Josh referring to themselves as “partners in greatness” — just as Lady Macbeth and Macbeth do in Shakespeare’s work. The play also includes hallucinations, cauldron references and murderous plots in order to get something desired. Even their son’s name, Mac, is a play on Macbeth.
The integration of Shakespeare, Skardarasy said, adds to the allure of the play and further proves the Bard’s influence.
The goal of “Bright Ideas” is to present a twisted murder comedy while still highlighting similar aspects in everyday life, like the stress of applying to prestigious institutions and the drive to do whatever it takes to get what is desired.
“It’s going to be slapstick and sweet,” Lyon said. “It’s going to be kind of creepy, kind of ridiculous, very funny, sort of eerie and hopefully it’ll make you think.”