A friend and I recently compared our favorite media of art. “Music and theater are the two forms that move me the most,” I declared. In response, my friend said he often had trouble believing actors in non-professional settings, and thus theater had limited emotional sway for him. I politely disagreed with his perspective, though, much in the same way you often freeze when put on the spot, I struggled to recall specific theater experiences I was certain had once delivered an emotional gut punch. I wondered for a moment, “Have I been duping myself this whole time? Does theater not affect me in the way I think it does?”
I need not have worried for long. That very evening, I emerged from Montana Hamel ’26’s Drama Board-funded production of “Pomona” in silence, having witnessed a powerful reminder of the theater’s ability to tell hugely impactful stories.
The play was staged in the film production studio in Martin Hall, which naturally presented interesting logistical hurdles for the production. The room’s green walls were covered with dark curtains, transforming the space into an intimate (or to some, I imagine, claustrophobic) theater space with a small open area as a stage and four rows of seats on the flat concrete floor. I initially worried that the lack of theater-friendly acoustics and raked seating would hinder the production’s connection with the audience, but again, my concerns were assuaged when I became immersed in the artistic vision of the work. I was reminded of what Associate Professor in Design Matt Saunders said to me once: “Some people go to the theater to sit in a comfy chair and have the theater brought right to them, but I like it when the audience has to work for it a little.” Those sitting in the back row did resort to standing or sitting on the backs of chairs to get a better view of the stage.
The absence of a true backstage meant that offstage actors were seated in a fifth row of seats behind the audience, always visible if you put in the work to turn around. At first glance, this choice seemed odd, though I came to love the rawness resulting from the inability of actors to hide from the audience during the show. There is something unsettling about seeing them sitting still, waiting to transform into their characters. The final barrier to an intimate connection between actors and audience was thus removed.
In a similar vein, stage changes were by necessity performed by actors in low light, which further enhanced the rawness of the play. Seeing the physical effort exerted by actors in setting up chairs and tables before launching into an emotionally charged scene reminded me of the intentionality of the art form and the deliberateness in which theater pursues its message. It must have been a challenge to go directly from moving furniture into character, though actor Grace Fruauff ’26 reported that sinking into the character during the stage change helped ease the transition. Another delightful workaround given the unusual space was sound designer Tolga Bozkurt ’28 knocking on the wall of the sound booth to simulate a stranger knocking on a door — a reminder of the inextricable link between actors and tech crew.
These aspects of the show are all wonderful in themselves, but I am of the opinion that a glorious live setup is all for naught if the story doesn’t deliver. Fortunately, Pomona is a heavy-hitter.
I have on several occasions wondered if there ought to be a “story to end all stories,” by which I mean a story so effective at conveying its moral lesson that it removes the need for others to exist. If we have so many stories with varying moral lessons that we impress upon our young children and adults alike, why does society continue to fall short of its idealistic goals? And yet, we keep producing stories with similar structures (the classic middle school story arc: beginning, rising action, climax, falling action) at an ever-faster pace. Stories are often built this way out of necessity — audiences crave “payoffs,” and stories are a commercial industry just like the next. But in my experience, the majority of our time spent on Earth does not result in people ending up in a different, if not necessarily better place than they began. Where is the story that depicts the endless cycles of depravity and boredom and repetition, and can more realistically speak to the human experience while having a chance of pulling us out of this cycle of doom?
Pomona.
The story begins with one woman’s desperate search for a twin sister who has likely fallen into the clutches of the sex industry. Meanwhile, two security guards duke it out in an effort to find personal solace and learn what it is they’re actually guarding — all they see are trucks being driven into a mysterious plot of concrete called “Pomona.” The tension in the play is palpable, and every muscle cries out for the story to be resolved. The resolution doesn’t come. It is eventually revealed that human bodies are being driven into an underground hospital to be perpetually impregnated and harvested for organs.
In a devastating turn, the play implies that the events of the play will continue to repeat themselves indefinitely. The main character, Ollie (Aviva Nathan ’28), who began the play asking a chicken nugget-guzzling wealthy property owner (Nico Johnson ’26) for information on her sister’s whereabouts while being driven around in circles, ends the play being told to seek out a man with a fondness for driving around in circles if she wants to find her sister. Security guards Charlie (Jimmy Nguyen ’28) and Moe (James Shelton ’28) begin in the midst of a fistfight and end on the verge of starting one. Gale (Grace Fruauff ’26), the owner of a brothel, begins the play calling for the murder of the rebellious sex worker Fay (Eva Murillo ’26), and ends the play being threatened by the literal girl boss Keaton (Sofia Gavrilova ’29) to murder Fay for the theft of her laptop.
Pomona is not the “story to end all stories” (which likely does not exist), but in my view, it comes closer to it than most anything else, stepping outside of archetypal forms and capitalizing on our linear assumptions for a more realistic take on the state of society.
Is theater uniquely situated to tell this kind of story? Perhaps — it’s a lot harder to walk out of a theater than to put down a book or shut off a movie on Netflix.
The ultimate goal of “the story to end all stories” would be to acknowledge the problems of reality and propose a solution, and Pomona only takes us partway there. But to acknowledge the vicious cycles of reality is an unquantifiably important first step. Such was my shock at being presented with this take on reality and the implications of its acknowledgement that I was left nearly speechless as I exited the green screen room, trying to process it all.
Pomona was a success, reaffirming the power of beautifully live theater.
