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Lydia Dawson opens a red tin can to reveal five clay baby toes.
“This one is my favorite,” she says while holding up the largest toe. She examines the toe’s wrinkles and the tiny nail carved into it by a prop-maker.
Soon these toes will be covered in stage blood and shoved into an actor’s mouth.
Dawson, a 20-year-old University of Maine psychology student, is directing “The Pillowman,” a dark comedy by playwright Martin McDonough.
In the play, two detectives interrogate a writer whose stories about child murder have been acted out in real-life crimes. The writer must defend his innocence and the legitimacy of his grisly tales. Speaking through a mouthful of baby toes is just one of his obstacles.
Dawson found her own obstacles while organizing the production. Maine Masque, the university’s student-run theater troupe, denied her sponsorship on account of the play’s gruesome themes.
“Cars slow down when they see an accident. They don’t slow down when they see a lemonade stand,” Dawson said in defense of her dark production and its audience appeal.
Maine Masque president Sarah Farnham noted that the troupe wished to “take a different direction” with this year’s production, the much less graphic, “Boys’ Life.”
Members of UMaine’s theater department warned Dawson that directing “The Pillowman” would be difficult. The play deals with themes such as free speech, religion, pedophilia and mental disability. If these themes were handled incorrectly, the play could be perceived as offensive or, worse yet, ineffective. Without sponsorship, Dawson had to find her own funding for a venue, advertising and securing the rights to perform the play. She turned to the theater department and the School of the Performing Arts for assistance. With help from theater professor Tom Mikotowicz, Dawson turned the production into an independent study course.
Mikotowicz was pleased to mentor his student on such a large project.
“She’s an exceptional student who never takes the easy road,” Mikotowicz said. “If she were going to take the easy way out she would pick something less controversial. She’s up to the challenge.”
This will be Dawson’s first full-length production. She’s directed two one-act plays before. She wrote both.
Dawson is also presenting the play as her Honors College thesis. The college provided grant money to help fund the touchy production.
Dawson still saw herself fit to direct the play. The 20-year-old psychology major found the themes intriguing and worth discussing.
“‘The Pillowman’ chose me,” Dawson said. “It keyed into a lot of things I have been thinking about, like what makes us do things that we perceive as wrong.”
Nobody in the Memorial Union notices the can of toes. Dawson, a short redhead, seals the can and folds her arms over it. Potential onlookers are now safe from the morbid props, a safety Dawson will not provide for her “Pillowman” audience.
“The Pillowman” will be presented in the Experimental Black Box Theatre, a newly renovated venue on the second floor of the Class of 1944 Hall. The Black Box is much smaller than Hauck Auditorium – actors, audience members and bloody toes alike will be up close and personal during performances.
“It’s such a small setting, the actors are right in your face all the time,” Dawson said.
She plans to seat the audience along three walls of the theater. The characters will interact near the middle of the room. Depending on where an audience member sits, he or she will have a different view of the characters and their actions. Audience members may form stronger feelings of identification – or disgust – with the characters who face them. Some characters may have their back to a portion of the audience for an extended period.
Dr. Mikotowicz and Dawson agree audiences will feel challenged by “The Pillowman’s” themes before they are offended by them. Dawson thinks audiences will be attracted to the play’s frank discussions.
“I didn’t get what was controversial about it. If it was a movie, it could be a PG-13 movie,” said Derek Francis, a mass communication student who plays Kapulski, one of the detectives who harasses the main character.
“The Pillowman” will be performed on Friday, April 17 and Saturday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m. in the Experimental Black Box Theatre. Tickets are $3 at the door. A donation jar for the National Coalition Against Censorship will be located outside the theater.
Bangor Daily News