Arts & Culture
The cast of “40 days” performs around their central prop.
Play “40 Days” floated to stage this past weekend
The Pointer
jmath438@uwsp.edu
“40 Days,” the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point’s most recent production by the theatre department, provided a magnificent performance along with a profound message and advice to viewers of all ages and life stages.
“The playwright was very happy. She came to see the show and she was really thrilled with what we had done with it,” director Tyler Marchant said.
“40 Days” is the first fully-staged performance of the play written by Laura Eason. It’s the story of seven people in a small Midwestern river town, not unlike Stevens Point.
The river running alongside the town is represented by a bathtub. Though this may seem obscure at first, it makes sense as the play continues. As the river level rises, the bathtub slowly fills and eventually overflows at a slow trickle until an unseen dam breaks and water comes rushing onto the stage, flooding it for the final duration of the play.
“There were over 600 gallons of water that were put on stage,” said Marchant.
The actors, all UW-SP students, engaged in a stunning performance that makes the viewer truly care about their lives.
Senior Megan McHugh starred as Casey, the narrator of the play and a guiding force through many of the scenes. Her calm narration brought the audience along with the story and provided a guide throughout the performance.
Junior Tricia Collenburg and senior Andrew Hollenbeck played Anna and Dave, a young married couple, obviously still developing the changing dynamic that comes with marriage.
Junior Derek Prestly played Ed, a young man absentmindedly looking after his grandmother while at a stalemate with life. Senior Eric Harper played Ed’s high school friend Paul, who is in town for a friend’s wedding.
Prestly and Harper’s characters interacted in a kind of stubborn awkwardness that is universal when seeing someone from long ago. The flood shocked Prestly’s character into opening up to Harper and realizing who he is.
Junior Elizabeth McMonagle and senior James Roland Freer played Nicole and Vincent, an older couple who, after years of marriage, still don’t fully understand each other.
A chorus of seven also moved the story along, uniquely acting as stagehands, props and extras.
Members of the audience have likely met all these characters before in daily life; everyone can relate to fighting couples, young people stuck in a life they don’t fully know yet and someone coming back to their hometown to find that much has changed.
Through the traumatic experience of the flood, the young couple realizes their marriage isn’t what they thought it was and the older couple comes to find they don’t know everything they thought they did about each other.
The plot of the play revolves around the before-and-after events of the flood, but the water is just a catalyst for what is to come. The underlying theme is the good and bad that come from stress, tragedy and crises.
“The story was something that people in our part of the country can really relate to,” senior Emily Groves said.
