‘Becky Shaw’ director chose play to challenge audience

On the weekend of Feb. 25, the Drake Theater put on “Becky Shaw,” a story about, “A blind date gone wrong,” director Zachary Decker said.

Decker is a senior musical theater major and this is his first full-length production that he has directed.

Becky Shaw is the story of a married couple, Suzanna and Andrew. Suzanna’s friend of 25 years, Max, is a brash finance manager, who Suzanna and Andrew set up on a blind date with Andrew’s coworker, Becky Shaw.

From there erupts a complex love situation that is attempted to be resolved throughout the rest of the show.

“I’m sure everyone has a different definition but for me it kind of is a love-square and my character (Becky Shaw) is the corner of the square that messes everybody else’s lives up,” lead actress Courtney Gordon said.

“Something that the author of this play had said is that it’s easy to kind of pick a character and blame them for everything went wrong but while it’s easy to point fingers, you have to look for the good in all of these characters too.”

There are multiple reasons that Decker chose Becky Shaw as the play to perform.

“Becky Shaw kind of addresses a lot of contemporary issues, like race, gender roles, dating, and class issues,” Decker said. “It kind of shoves your face in them and makes you address them. This play is kind of a starting point for people to have conversations outside of the theater about these issues. I want people to get offended by how blunt and inyour-face it is but then be able to talk about it afterwards.”

The play includes stories of death, disease, homosexuality, racist stereotypes, and many more social issues.

Throughout the story, the audience is introduced to multiple levels of social interaction and life issues.

“There’s nothing in our society that it doesn’t touch on or make fun of, and it does it in a way