BY ALEX HO

In print | April 12, 2007

“There is no such thing as empathy,” a friend of Anna Belc ‘07 once told her. This idea would eventually fuel the penning of “The Fishbowl,” Belc’s honors thesis play. “The Fishbowl,” a claustrophobic and enigmatic portrayal of a family after the death of its drug-addled son, will definitely be interesting fare to show during the upcoming Family and Friends Weekend. Starring John Boonstra ’07, Kate Aizpuru ’10, Emily Robbins ’07, Dwight Smith ’08 and Suzanne Winter ’10, the play tests the very meaning of a family as it shows how each of its members deal with death in completely incongruous ways.

Helming the production is professional director David Disbrow, who has previously collaborated with Theater Department Chair Allen Kuharski and is also an independent musician.

“One of the things that drew me to him was his musical background,” Belc said. Music is crucial to the play not only because the deceased son Pete (Smith) is an avid musician, but also because the act of listening becomes a major theme in the play. Our introduction to the family is almost impenetrable to the audience, since mother (Aizpuru), father (Boonstra) and daughter (Robbins) all talk about different things: lasagna, Wisconsin, funeral wear. The characters seem to be on completely different wavelengths. The elliptical dialogue, though somewhat difficult to take in at first, eventually becomes very affecting, giving its audience almost as disconnected an experience as its characters. The question arises: Can we ever really understand these characters? Can they understand each other?

Disbrow not only brought his musical tastes to the production (classic low-fi rock by the band Smog and other ambient tracks add to the play’s unadorned, candid feel), but also a sensitivity to the music of dialogue. “A lot of friends of mine who are directors think visually,” Disbrow said, “but I tend to think orally before I direct a play. I think Anna has written the play with a very specific voice. I feel theater is the place where this music comes most alive, the music of language. The goal is to have the audience feel something visceral, perhaps to get the audience to feel something the visuals can’t accomplish.”

From the production’s start, Belc and Disbrow agreed that communicating this music was more important than presenting a conventionally plotted narrative. In fact, rehearsals began without a full script. “The first three-quarters of the play remains intact, but the last quarter developed with the actors during rehearsals,” Disbrow said. “We had one day when David just had us do improv,” Winter said. “We tried to experiment with the power dynamics between our characters. We ended up making a really cohesive scene that made it into the final script.”

“It has been really great to investigate the play in a way that is so honest. Much of the play was about people rediscovering themselves because they’re placed out of context,” Disbrow said. “The characters have really taken on a life of their own.” None of the changes have much worried Belc. “The play has taken a new life. It definitely was not what I saw in my head when I wrote it,” Belc said. “But it still is a very strong production. I like that there is some distance between the play and myself.” Notwithstanding the naturalistic nature of the production, Belc’s sharp writing still shines through. She places her characters in all sorts of mundane yet incisive situations that really illuminate the absurdity of death and of life as well.

The family’s decidedly un-histrionic med student daughter Margaret reacts to old pictures not with a feeling of nostalgia, but a feeling of waste. The mother cuts up all her clothes. The play’s most tantalizing set-up is the introduction of Pete’s girlfriend Isabella (Winter), an event which leads the family to consider raising Pete’s yet-unborn child, perhaps as a perverse attempt to resurrect Pete himself.

As for the title, Belc said, “One day, I woke up and said, ’There’s going to be a fish.’” The play’s many motifs, fish included, seem almost to be throwaway elements, but also important in a way — kind of like life itself.

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