A Comedy Of Terrors
By: Gabriel Cohn ’16
“The show plays with many ideas: police brutality, authoritarianism, the culture of terror that we’re living in. But it’s a comedy. Who would have thought?” Speaking with director Theo Saroglou ’16, it becomes increasingly clear that the biting political satire that first drew Saroglou to Oliver Lansley’s The Infant has informed nearly every aspect of his production. Putting current events at the forefront, Saroglou made several key choices that tied the production to the present, resulting in a refreshing piece of theater that succeeds in joining a larger social dialogue. Audio clips that roll before the lights go up at the beginning, highlight some of the past year’s biggest headlines: the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson; kidnappings and executions by the Islamic State; and the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo. It is in this last example that The Infant finds a grim parallel, as the play begins with Cooper (Chris Naughton ’17) sitting in an interrogation room for allegedly drawing an anti-establishment work of art.
Lights up on the then-unnamed Cooper sitting with his hands tied around a chair and a black sack covering his bloodied head. His face obscured, Cooper is left alone on stage for several silent moments before anything happens, allowing the audience a full view of the fractured world that The Infant seeks to produce. “I thought a lot about people getting caught up in the hysteria of the media,” Naughton says of preparing for his role. “Cooper is so easily swayed by the opinions of those he presumes to be in authority, in a similar way to people getting frightened by everything on television.”
Enter Castogan (Keegan Kelly ’17) and Samedi (Zachary Cohn ’16), who strut on stage like a comedy duo dressed for a business meeting—or a funeral. Through this duo, The Infant showcases Lansley’s lightning-fast wit, which accelerates the pacing of the show to a breakneck hustle. Castogan and Samedi are some unknown type of investigators, and they have kidnapped Cooper on suspicion that he produced a drawing that they considered a threat to society—though the reasons are left unclear and vague. The banter flows freely, and echoes of Samuel Beckett are not far off as the interrogators’ short, often-repeated lines find their rhythm. Scenes are swift—the set frequently changes between parallel interrogation rooms and, cleverly, the hallway in between them. This is especially true once the character of Lilly (Rebecca Gracey ’18) enters the mix. Lilly, Cooper’s wife, has also been kidnapped because of the drawing, eventually becoming the subject of Castogan’s affections.
Just returning from her semester abroad in the First-Year Experience in London Program, Gracey had the unique experience of being a first-time Skidmore actor surrounded by a cast of veterans. She recalls meeting the rest of the cast for the first time: “I remember showing up for the read-through early because I was worried the others were going to think I was unprofessional. But I didn’t need to worry about that at all, because I was welcomed instantly. The cast became fast friends and I think that’s a big factor in what made the show a success.” Gracey isn’t the only one who recently returned from London—as Saroglou actually discovered The Infant in a London bookshop while studying abroad on Skidmore’s own Shakespeare Programme.
Finishing my discussion with Saroglou, I asked the tried-and-true question: what did he want the audience to walk away from The Infant with? “It’s not about walking out with an answer to anything,” he stresses. “There is no one solution to these [political and social] issues. But if we can make at least one more person think about them, then I’ve succeeded.”
This article originally appeared in print in the Spring 2015 Skidmore Theater Newsletter.