Collegiate Times

To many, the most impressive of plays takes the audience on a rollercoaster of emotion. From gut-busting laughter at one moment, to overwhelming tears the next, the upcoming production “This” is guaranteed to take audiences on a ride viewer’s won’t forget.

Written by award-winning playwright Melissa James Gibson, “This” focuses on the lives of five characters living in contemporary New York City. The comical yet poignant production, which opens tomorrow, Sept. 21, sheds light on serious emotions and events, such as adultery, death and parenthood.

“It’s a very challenging play because it is totally actor focused. It’s one of those plays that lives or dies by what the actors bring to the stage,” said Susanna Rinehart, the production’s director and an associate professor in the department of theatre and cinema.

Rinehart loves the emotional rollercoaster ride audience members are forced to take during the show.

“I don’t think a single rehearsal has gone by where I haven’t been crippled with laughter and then bawling my eyes out,” Rinehart said.

Forcing the cast to embody these characters that have gone through some extreme and upsetting experiences in life has been a great challenge, Rinehart said. 

“What happens to the characters in the play means that the actors have to explore some pretty dark corners of their emotion,” she said. “In order to embody a character that has experienced a form of loss, or a form of pain or guilt, I have to push them to go to feeling these things.”

Although it has been a difficult task for her, Rinehart said she could not be more than pleased with the show’s progress.

“Not everybody around the age of 22 can climb inside the skin of these characters and come alive. They worked so beautifully and so hard, and it’s always such a great feeling watching them and sharing in their success.”

Alexis Baker and Cody Oher are among the cast members in the production. 

Baker, a senior theatre arts major, plays Jane, a 38-year-old woman with a nine-year-old daughter whose husband recently passed away. Baker said it was quite difficult learning to embody her character because of the obvious age difference, as well as the deep emotions her character undergoes.

“I had to spend a lot of time working on this character,” Baker said. “What I really wanted to do was to get the spirit of Jane. I knew she had to be strong, but also weak at the same time.”

This is the first play in which Baker is a lead character, and she said she is hoping her hard work and dedication pays off.

“Being the lead in a play is very new to me,” she said. “There is a lot of pressure to stay positive and energetic. I feel that I’ve hopefully done a good job representing this character and this show as a whole.”

The cast and production crew’s hard work has paid off so far as well, Baker said.

“We’ve really poured our souls into this production, and with only a month of rehearsals, I’m so beyond proud of what we’ve done,” she said.

Oher, a theatre arts major, plays Alan, a gay middle-aged man. Oher said he enjoys how straightforward and upfront is character is.

“Alan tells it like it is, or at least how he sees it,” Oher said. “Regardless, though, everything he says or does comes from a place of truth.”

Like Baker, Oher said it took some time to adjust to his character.

“Alan thoroughly believes in everything he is, and so, as an actor, it’s my job to take Alan’s often crazy mindset and logic and make it a believable reality for myself and the audience,” Oher said. “This is an often difficult task, considering some of the insane and off-the-wall comments Alan makes.”

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A version of this article appeared in the Sep 21 issue of the Collegiate Times.