Reflections on the senior studios
This week, the University of Dallas Drama Department put on the 2025 Senior Studios: “Glory in the Flower”, written by William Inge and directed by Alice Forget, and “A Respectable Wedding”, written by Bertolt Brecht and directed by Ben Thomas. If you didn’t go and see them, you can’t complain about spoilers because the last show was on Saturday.
The two plays were wildly different in tone and subject matter. The first play takes place in a ‘50s tiki bar and features the reunion of two high school lovers. A fading piano teacher, Jackie, confronts her former feelings for the sometimes-fighter Bus after the two reminisce about their high school years.
It struck me that none of the characters learn anything from Wordsworth poem that Jackie recites:
“Though nothing can bring back the hour / Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower, /
We will grieve not, rather find / Strength in what remains behind.”
The other characters also long for the past without finding any strength in their present. They comfort themselves with drinks and cigarettes, but do nothing about their situations. The young people, not yet nostalgic, are still in their “glory”, enjoying themselves with no heed to their future.
Ultimately, none of them get what they want. Jackie gets disillusioned with Bus after a harsh argument, and through a conversation with a student at the bar, she yells at Bus to “grow up”. Bus, still angry about his past experiences and unwilling to commit to Jackie, drinks disconsolately as the lights go out.
I was expecting a cliched play about being nostalgic for a past decade, where the audience enjoys the greaser fashion, indoor smoking and swing dancing. The audience both expects and wants the couple– despite their obvious incompatibilities–to get back together again. But this play chose instead the far more realistic truth that most people grow apart from high school sweethearts and their hometowns.
I think my favorite part of the play was seeing all the side characters interact. Despite their very limited dialogue, the audience could tell a lot about the characters and their wants. The actors (and the director) deserve credit for their ability to convey so many moods and thoughts without speaking, especially in moments where the focus is on the main couple.
If the first play was an example of nostalgic, unhappy realism, “A Respectable Wedding” is completely fantastical and totally chaotic. I thought it was a really good choice on the director’s part to emphasize how different the tone and subject matter of the second play was in the set and lighting.
The characters wore monochromatic costumes and exaggerated masks sort of resembling “The Addams Family.” Even the furniture was painted to look one-dimensional and the props, too, were drawings on cardboard cutouts.
If “Glory in the Flower” dwells on the romantic past, the second treats all romance as a joke. “A Respectable Wedding” takes the unlikeable relatives, not-so-perfect friends and social tensions that often accompany weddings, and then hyperbolizes them.
Everyone in the play hates each other, and everything is falling apart–quite literally. (I was later informed by the actors that the table breaking was not, in fact, planned–fortunately, it was the last show, so the table didn’t need to be used again.)
The drama culminates in a frightening scene where everything lies destroyed, and even the new marriage seems in jeopardy. The play resolves with the couple deciding their guests were awful and they might as well get on to, well, more important things on their wedding night.
Despite its social commentary, the play never takes itself too seriously. From crude jokes to furniture snapping randomly, there were lots of humorous moments to keep the audience engaged. It was interesting to watch a play where the audience didn’t sympathize too much with any of the characters, but enjoyed the comedy of everything nonetheless.
Everyone who worked to bring these plays to life, especially the senior directors, did an excellent job. The cast was wonderful and the sets and costumes fit their plays’ subjects well. Don’t miss the Senior Studios coming up this fall!