Ziggy Schulting ’18 and Tom Chandler ’16. Photo: Dante Haughton ’19

AN ESSAY ON ENDURANCE

BY: BRANDON BOGLE ’16
“We must learn to endure what we cannot avoid.”
That quote was one of the first we heard from the mouth of Tom Chandler’s embodiment of the long-dead personal essayist Michel de Montaigne, and it set the mood for the acute dissection of grief and loss that playwright/director Rachel Karp and her team created in Of White Walls and Words. The play tells the story of a young woman, Charlie (Ziggy Schulting), who has lost her brother. In her efforts to move on and deal with her grief, Charlie turns to Montaigne’s book of personal essays. Charlie’s attempts to understand the 16th century writer are shown through her conversations with Chandler’s Montaigne, who speaks entirely in text from Montaigne’s original essays. Their conversations make up the bulk of the show.

Tom Chandler ’16 and Ziggy Schulting ’18. Photo: Dante Haughton ’19

Karp’s use of found text was masterful in dialogue that never lost its snappy, conversational quality, or lost sight of its action for the sake of a deep quote. The actors seemed to feel similarly. “It’s hard to not feel that Montaigne is speaking to you,” said Schulting. But the true strength of the play was within the way that grief was handled. Charlie’s grief was represented not only by Montaigne, but also by three witch-like spirits (Julia Rutkovsky, Hannah Blau, Rowen Halpin), who compelled Charlie to write on her walls whenever her emotions overcame her.

Charlie was not the only one who was dealing with loss, though. Both of her parents, Pat (Madeleine Emerick) and Alex (Marcella Adams), were tangled up in grieving for their children, one dead and one seemingly losing her mind. Both performances by Emerick and Adams were engaging as they debated whether or not they should have their daughter seek help or leave her to cope in her frustratingly unique way.  The show ended with the revelation that the events of the play—which feel as though they have happened over a matter of days—have covered a month of Charlie’s life. This revelation left the audience reeling, and showed how long human emotions can take to process.

Madeleine Emerick ’16, Marcella Adams ’16, Ziggy Schulting ’18, and Tom Chandler ’16. Photo: Dante Haughton ’19

Romi Moors’s lighting design brought us into Charlie’s dark state of mind, where she could do nothing but write to avoid going mad. The construction of the set also helped to re-emphasize the themes of the play. Placed in the back corner of Studio A, the set was surrounded by white paper walls—the walls of Charlie’s room, which Charlie continually writes on throughout the course of the play. The audience, up close and personal, makes up the 4th wall.

Karp pulled no punches in pushing the isolation, frustration, and desperation that surround pain and loss. Her unflinching presentation of grief was incredibly vulnerable, allowing the audience an opportunity to reflect on the way that they handle their own losses. Of White Walls and Words is a rewarding, if painful, exploration on how we face our largest struggles—and how long we are capable of enduring them.

Brandon Bogle is a senior theater major and a staff writer for the Living Newsletter.

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Production Credits

Director/Playwright: Rachel Karp ’18

Choreography Advisor: Nola Donkin ’18

Costume/Makeup Designer: Kate Glowatsky ’16

Lighting Designer/Stage Manager: Romi Moors ’18

Cast: Ziggy Schulting ’18 (Charlie), Tom Chandler ’16 (Montaigne), Marcella Adams ’16 (Alex), Madeleine Emerick ’16 (Pat), Hannah Blau ’19 (Ensemble), Rowen Halpin ’19 (Ensemble), Julia Rutkovsky ’16 (Ensemble)