the bulletin
They're Not There This fall, the Nobles Theatre Collective (NTC) produced Absurd Shorts, a collection of one-act plays by Samuel Beckett concluding with one by Eugène Ionesco. Assistant Director of Graduate Affairs Michael Polebaum ’08, credited in the playbill as the “NTC Mensch,” collected the audience in the Arts Center lobby before the performances. “It is up to you how you will experience this production,” he announced.
Isabelle Walkey, Jonathan Herring, Peter Scharer, Syra Mehdi, all '17
12 Nobles WINTER 2017
The cast and crew then shuffled the audience behind dark curtains into dark hallways. There, audience members chose among four plays performed in and around Vinik Theatre. Drab costumes and unsettling noises characterized the Beckett plays portrayed in the first two acts. With the final bell, the audience moved into Vinik for Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano, which included shockingly bright colors but no less absurdity. The plays
concluded with the four brightly clothed characters marching offstage into darkness chanting, “Don’t say they’re there; I can hear they’re here.” “Theatre of the Absurd,” as defined on the playbill, functions according to the belief that “humanity inhabits a universe with which we are out of key; we are bewildered, troubled and obscurely threatened.”