DRAMA REVIEW: FREEZEFRAME

'FreezeFrame ' acclaimed for it's playwright and winner of 32nd Annual Playwright Contest was staged at Wilner Auditorium at WSU. Penned by Deborah Yarchun and directed by Dannette Baker, the play focused on issue of lost college going youths in the hi-tech world.

The plot revolves around the four characters of the play: Paul, Aliyah, Mark and Brianna. Paul, a photographer as well, lives with a dark secret in his heart. He prefers to remain introvert.Paul darkest secret turns out to be the charge he had faced of molesting his brothers, whom he says he loved, for taking their nude bathing photo. His consciousness of guilt constrains him from admitting his faith on God and love to his girlfriend, Brianna. Brianna, a fashion major, is always anxious as if she's not got what she ought to. Her desire turns out to be sexual as Mark makes her consious of it. Mark, a careless freak, loves the company of video games and marijuana and saucy relationship with women. Aliyah, cold and murderous, is omniscient and omnipresent. She is in mission to what she calls "freezing the man's soul". She eventually changes into a normal person with mortal emotions and feelings. The play ends as the time arrives when Mark uses his invetion to go back to the past.

The plot was mediocre but the message was loud and clear. The issue of sexuality, change and inhumanity in this hi-tech world was not tough to infer and easily tackled. The play was beautifully staged with artistic set design . The division of stage to show different places belonging to character and performing simultaneously at the same time was praisworthy as well as bewildering. The actors gave superb performance; applauded for a long time by the viewers. Light, costumes and multimedia were used beautifully to flow the plot, playing the part of fifth character. The dialogues were full of jargons, slangs and one-liners to strongly redeem the lacklustre of the plot while the monologues were used to gauge the depth of the matter.

Overall, the playwright didn't stand upto the acclaimed it had recieved but a beautiful play to watch. A lot of confusion but entertaining and sensous.