By Natalie Esposito and Love Maia
The UC Santa Barbara Department of Theater and Dance opened its new season with a production of 35 plays presented in 70 minutes, titled “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.”
Fast moving, improvisational, and interactive, the debut production showcased a small, eight-member ensemble cast running full speed around the stage, with the audience participating.
Six of the eight ensemble members acting out 35 plays in 70 minutes for UCSB’s production of “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.” Photo by Stephen Sherrill.
Short plays were performed in random order with colorful pieces of paper numbered 1-35 hanging above the stage from a clothesline. The show allowed for the audience to call out the play number they wanted to see next whenever the stage manager shouted the word “curtain.” One of the cast members would jump up and pull down the chosen numbered piece of paper and yell out the name of the play. Actors would scramble to bring out props or get into position to begin the play.
The production, created by playwright Greg Allen, appeared at first confusing and exciting for theatergoers. But as the performance progressed, the individual plays became more personal, pushing the audience to question their lives and pulling emotions back and forth between humor, shock, anger, sadness, embarrassment, enjoyment, and confusion.
In one play, the lighting designer turned off all the lights and the actors continued to perform a truth test by having audience members raise their hands to confess secrets in the dark. In another play, the actors used different sized chairs to symbolize a mother, father, and baby and told a heartbreaking story through the movement of the chairs.
"A lot of these plays are about human connection and disconnection and what all of that entails," said Angel Villalobo, one of the actors.
UCSB students and ensemble actors rushing to pick and prepare for the next among 35 plays during Theater and Dance’s production of “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.” Photo by Stephen Sherrill.
The actors brought audience members on stage to dance, act, and sometimes even call out lines on command from their seats.
"Once you're on stage, what happens happens and you just have to run with it," said actor Michael Seitz.
A red digital clock hung at the back of the stage where both the audience and cast could see the 70 minutes ticking down as each play was performed, keeping everyone in constant motion, and keeping the performance fresh and entertaining throughout.
Angel Villalobos (left) and Hailey Turner (right) during one of the 35 plays performed as part of UCSB’s production of “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.” Photo by Stephen Sherrill.
"In the chaos and being in the moment, you don't know what's coming next," said Frances Domingos, another actor in the cast. "You have to land and breathe and just get it right for you in that moment. I really enjoyed that part."
There were rules to the performance beyond the audience choosing the order of each skit. The audience was told in advance that if cast members did not finish all 35 plays in 70 minutes, they would have failed their task.
Michael Bernard, director of the production, said the time limit poses a high level of difficulty for the actors. “The biggest challenge was the randomness of it. We don’t know what’s next,” he said.
“When you rehearse a play, everything has an order and everything backstage has a place and once it gets used it’s put away. But you can’t do any of that with this play, because you don’t know when the next one is coming, you don’t know when you’re going to need that prop. So you have to be paying extra attention the whole time to know exactly what comes next.”
At the third performance, the actors finished with one minute and 18 seconds left on the clock. They cheered in triumph, celebrating openly before the audience. The audience also cheered, but its applause was not as much for the time victory as for the ensemble's success in entertaining the crowd with so many unexpected surprises.
Love Maia is a third-year global studies major at UC Santa Barbara. Natalie Esposito is a third-year communication studies major at UC Santa Barbara. They co-wrote this article for their Writing Program class, Digital Journalism.