Student-directed play provides humor, realistic acting

By Jenny Jones
Staff Writer

The game of miniature golf was left behind by a race of dwarfs that once roamed the Earth.

At least that is what Chuck, a character in "Mere Mortals," told all the different women he took to the miniature golf course during the act entitled "Foreplay."

Not only did Chuck come close to convincing the women of this unknown truth, but he also briefly fooled the audience.

It was great acting such as this that made "Mere Mortals," a play directed by Dija Pathak, a senior in the School of Liberal Arts, realistic.

Full of humor, the show included numerous sexual puns and sporadic jokes.

In the act titled "Time Flies," two mayflies are returning home after a date.

During this act, May the mayfly asks her escort if he would like to come inside for a snack.

Accepting, he flutters inside May’s house, and she shows him her lily pad and offers him a drink of stagnant water. But it is not until the mayflies sit down to watch TV that the humor really takes off.

Tuning into a show similar to that of "The Crocodile Hunter," the host of the show is stooped over a stagnant puddle of water that contains many different types of insects.

Not only does the puddle contain many insects, but it is also the home of May the mayfly.

When May and her date realize they are on TV, they also find out that they only have a life span of one day and all they are expected to do is meet, mate, have offspring and die.

It as at this point in the scene that the mayflies begin yelling at the clock to shut up which adds to the humor of the plot.

The laughs did not end there, however.

In the act titled "Mere Mortals," the play’s namesake, three construction workers had the audience believing that they were perched 50 stories above New Jersey.

Complete with Jersey accents, hard hats and work boots, the actors portrayed these characters exactly.

In this scene, the co-workers Joe, Frank and Charlie make up exaggerated stories about their lives.

Charlie told his co-workers he was really the missing Lindbergh baby and Frank said he was the king of Russia, but it was Joe’s story about how he was Marie Antoinette in a past life that was the most surprising.

It was the realistic acting and overwhelming humor that made "Mere Mortals" a success.

n "Mere Mortals" will run at 8 p.m. today and Saturday, and at 2 p.m. Sunday in the Black Box Theater located in Creative Arts Building 3. The show is free to the public.

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