Necessary Evil: Recap
The winter play this year, “Necessary Evil,” was the third student-written play to make its way to Grace theater. Tristan Griffin ‘18 and Laurent Brodie ‘18 wrote it with the vision of putting the classic superheroes we know in a modern plot.
The play focuses on eight super villains from various movies and comics, including The Joker (James Mahedy ‘18), Harley Quinn (Georgia Ossorguine ‘18), Cruella Deville (Diana Michaelis ‘19), and more. After years of evil work, they all come together to a rehab center to attend a group therapy session. There are three curators of the therapy session, one trying to keep her job, one in charge of security, and another that turns out to be a mastermind behind a grand plan of evil. In the beginning, the plan is simple: give the supervillains back the lives that they deserve, and send them into the world as renewed people. However, this plan takes a twist. It turns out that one of the therapy curators, the intern (Gabe Lopez ‘18), initially nerdy and quiet, is behind a masterplan to kill each of the villains because he doesn’t believe any of them will change once they leave the rehab center.
I sat down with Laurent and Tristan to ask them how they went about directing and writing the play. Tristan explained that they “decided to write a play because [they] wanted to explore [their] own creativity, and were always interested in producing/directing a Grace Theater Company play.” I also asked them how they decided what they wanted it to be about. They explained that they “both love fictional characters, especially villains, so the idea actually came automatically to [them].” Every year, the Grace Theater Company sends out an email inviting people that want to submit a self-written play to do so, with the potential to become the Winter play. I asked them about the process, “we got it approved in the fall of 2017 by submitting our final draft of the play to the faculty supervisors. Then, we were chosen!” Sometimes, the best theater is written by more than one person; I asked if they had always wanted to collaborate, to which Tristan instantly responded, “we only embarked on this process because we knew we were working together.”
All in all, this was a must-see play. If you missed it, you can catch the next student-written play next winter!
CAST:
James Mahedy ‘18 – The Joker
Gabe Lopez ‘18 – The Nerd/Evil Mastermind
Nick Molinaro ‘18 – The Security
Georgia Ossorguine ‘18 – Harley Quinn
Diana Michaelis ‘19 – Cruella Deville
Lydia Reiss ‘20 – The Wicked Witch of the West
Jake Scherr ‘18 – Walter White
Lucia Rogerson ‘18 – The Therapist
Abisola Fashakin ‘19 – A Psycho Killer
James O’Brien ‘20 – Dracula