Collegiate Times

Michael, played by Adam Ressa, teases his wife, Vera, portrayed by Sarah Wylie in the play "The Unveiling."

Director and second year master of fine arts student Alanna Malone wants audience members to know that "The Unveiling," opening today, has a strong historical background but is not a realistic play.

"It's a dark comedy," Malone said. "There are dark powerful forces working on these people that prompt them into absurd moments and that offers a great theatricality."

In the play, Ferdinand Vanek is invited to a dinner party hosted by his friends Michael and Vera. During the course of the play, the married couple tries to convince Vanek that he should live the way they do.

The play deals with a period in Czech history called normalization. During the 1970s and 1980s, Stalinists promised Czech people that if they gave up personal freedoms they would receive a good job, money and permission to travel. Czech people were not allowed to express dissent or organize.

Vera and Michael have exchanged their personal freedoms for consumable goods and try to convince Vanek this is the best way to live.

"Vera and Michael's attempts to work on him are incredibly threatening, coercive, fun, Vanek is subjected to all these things. Each one is a barrage or an attempt to get Vanek to say, 'You know you're right, I should take a better job,'" Malone said. "His denial and deflection of Vera and Michael's attempts drives them crazy."

Malone said she wanted to direct this play in part because of its relevance and ideas.

"Policies or attitudes have a way each generation has to confront them, encounter them, deal with them, and if we don't have the courage to do that, they morph into more nefarious places that aren't cautified, but become personal attitudes. Although this play comes out of very codified and structured governmental policies and repressive regimes," she said.

Malone said this absurdist comedy relates to this country because of our consumer-oriented society.

"This idea of materialism and people's access to money and power of privilege in the United States, there's a huge divide in, 'Well, I have all this stuff, and this makes me this person. And clearly if you don't, you haven't worked as hard or you haven't pulled yourself together.' Which is really nutso, but there you have it, these prejudices ... How do we allow for that kind of freedom where people don't hurt each other, but they help each other, how do we that in a society?" Malone said.

She said the play grapples with the issue of power.

"People with power are really reluctant to give it up. Who's going to give it up? That's what Vera and Michael are doing in this play, that is their destruction, but the problem with that is that it leaves you spiritually void, with no human dignity and no ability to offer dignity to the people that you're with," Malone said.

Senior theatre arts major Ben Kelley plays lead role Ferdinand Vanek, a failed writer and current brewery worker who visits friends Vera and Michael.

To research for the part, Kelley examined life of playwright Vclav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic. It's suggested that Vanek is strongly based on Havel.

Kelley said his character is more skiddish than Havel and has changed during the rehearsal process.

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