Living & Arts

'Pop Out' hits Frear

Pop-out

Alex Zhang | Phoenix Staff

Sasha Shahidi, Ben Hattem and Jane Abell are part of an ensemble cast that has players in multiple roles.

In print | November 13, 2008

This weekend, Jessie Bear ’09 will bring her playwriting thesis to life on the Frear Theater stage with “Pop Out.” With a cast of complex characters, Bear explores some of the dilemmas that result when occupational ambitions interfere with already strained personal relationships. “Pop Out” considers the gender-related hurdles that women encounter in both their personal and professional lives.

And so it goes: Jenny, a physician specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, is already the designated breadwinner in a relationship with job-averse Dennis. And now she’s trying to land a much sought-after promotion at the hospital where she regularly toils. Phyllis, a ghost from Jenny’s medical school days, is the only thing standing between her and the job.

Meanwhile, Dolly, a college student, is struggling to tell her boyfriend that they will never be able to have children because she is reproductively challenged. Moving nicely between plots and ideas, Bear’s script effectively synthesizes multiple stories into a coherent whole.

While each character’s story remains unique, the intertwining narratives are all driven by gender-based dilemmas. According to Bear, “The play is heavily influenced by my own musings on gendered power relations.”

Commenting on the strained relationship between the high-powered Jenny and her under-achieving companion, Dennis, Bear said that these two characters “struggle with finding satisfaction [while] there’s clearly great tension bubbling under the surface.” Dolly’s character is, impressively, just as well developed, despite her less prominent role in the production. In Dolly’s brief scenes, she overcomes her disappointment with the prospect of a childless existence and emerges from this coping process a stronger person.

Bear is only the second student to complete a playwriting thesis, and the Theater Department sought out a professional director, Lisa Jo Epstein, to coordinate the performance. Bear said she was humbled by the experience of working with a professional like Epstein, who has accumulated extensive directorial credentials in her capacity as artistic director of the Gas & Electric Arts Theater Company. “It’s such a privilege to work with a professional director. It’s crazy to get that experience as an undergraduate playwright who’s never had anything produced until this show.”

Under Epstein’s direction, the players became intimately familiar with their characters. Isa St. Clair ’11, who plays multiple characters in the play, stressed importance of interpersonal dynamics. “For this play in particular, the relationships between the characters are crucial to the play’s structure, so Lisa Jo introduced some great exercises to build these relationships,” St. Clair said.

For Judy Browngoehl ’09, who is also juggling multiple roles in the production, these exercises have been infinitely valuable to helping her polish her performance. “Sitting across from someone and having to communicate with only a few gestures—raising a hand, turning a head, crossing the legs— [you see] how these small movements can sometimes convey more than language can,” Browngoehl said.

Ben Hattem ’12, who plays all of the male characters in the production, said that the small cast of characters has become very close-knit. “It’s a very ensemble-y show. A small cast leads to a lot of bonding,” Hattem said. He also noted that the male characters play conspicuously unheroic roles in Bear’s play, deviating from the standard theatrical model of male-dominated narratives. “Sometimes I feel played off of, but it’s not a bad thing. Plays are generally male-heavy.”

According to Bear, the current version of the play has evolved substantially from the original draft and will continue to undergo both significant and smaller edits until the performance.

“Jessie has been nothing but open and interested in working on her play with us as actors, which has made the process dynamic and personally fulfilling,” Judy Browngoehl ’09 said, describing the production process as a highly collaborative one.

“Even in September, the play looked quite different from what it will look like on Friday” Bear said. Admitting that she “initially set out to write a lighter play,” Bear did not anticipate that “Pop Out” would evolve into a thematically loaded drama.

But now that it has, the show’s cast is confident that Bear’s hard work has paid off with a final product that explores the troubled intersection of gender, work and love. “Jessie is basically brilliant, and it’s a joy to work on this piece of hers,” St. Clair said.