BY ALEX HO

In print | December 7, 2006

Moments before falling out of consciousness, a gasping woman can barely utter the words “Here is peace, another realm, a life without body, without country, without history, without suffering.” The roles that history forces individuals to play is candidly explored in this fall semester’s production by Senior Company, a culminating project for senior theater major and minors. The play “Days and Nights Within” follows Elsa Weber, played by Anna Belc ‘07, who is arrested and accused of espionage in 1950s East Berlin and grows to have a complex relationship with her interrogator, played by Rachel Sugar ’08. The play is by no means a conventional interrogation drama. At its essence, "it’s a love story," Sugar said.

The production was a welcome departure from most of the cast and crew’s theater experiences here at Swarthmore. While most of the department’s emphasis is on collective creation and the honing of original plays, director Katie Van Winkle ‘07 and the rest of her company decided instead to tackle American playwright Ellen McLaughlin’s 1985 work, which was inspired by the true story of Erica Wallach as dramatized in the book “Light at Midnight.”

The play was intensively scrutinized by costume designer and production dramaturge Jen Roth ‘07, who did extensive research to ensure the production’s authenticity. One great asset for Belc and Sugar was being able to talk to Professor of Economics Fred Pryor, who had similarly been accused of spying for the CIA and spent half a year in what might have been the same prison as the one referred to in the play. Katie said that it was invaluable to “informing the actors’ internal motivation work.”

Still, the play has given the company considerable space to create. “Our set is very different from the set described in the script,” Roth said. The set and lighting design, crafted by Kim Comer ‘09, is evocative in its drabness, paralleling Elsa’s alienating imprisonment. Much of the play takes place in near-complete darkness. Video projection is used impressionistically, freeing the play from a conventional linear narrative. Van Winkle said, “Working from an outside play has allowed us not to have to obsess over every aspect of the production. But, of course, we still obsess over every aspect of the production.” Even the most minute detail like the last button on Sugar’s jacket and how it affects Sugar’s intended masculine impression is taken care of.

“Days and Nights Within” also treads on refreshingly new ground for both actors. Neither of the two had played out a two-person interchange that was so focused on power dynamics. “It combines a lot of different acting techniques that I had previously never done,” Belc said. For Sugar, the challenge and joy was taking on the masculine part of the interrogator. “A lot of characters I’ve played are hyper-feminine,” she said. “To play a woman who is completely comfortable in a more or less a men’s club is very different.”

The actor’s rigorous preparation for the psychology of their characters is more than fitting for a play that tackles torture so unreservedly. “Another reason we chose this play was its relevance to the contemporary uproar surrounding Guantanamo,” Van Winkle said. Don’t expect any elaborate nail-pulling, though: Belc’s Elsa is instead subjected to sleep deprivation, the denial of food and temperature variance. Van Winkle said, “The torture methods were meant to turn the minds of the prisoners against themselves, as opposed to those lurid torture methods you always hear about.” For Elsa, the most potent form of torture is simply her isolation. The audience follows her perspective as her mental state corrodes and she begins to have dreams that obsess over her interrogator. The interaction is affecting for Sugar’s character as well. At first domineering and confident in her role as part of the Stasi, the East German secret police, the interrogator ultimately cannot help but become more and more intimate with Elsa. Sugar said, “There grows to be an understanding, that either one of them could have been in the other’s position. The circumstances could have been different.” The connection that develops between them scrambles up a once black-and-white situation. “Only one of us can win,” Sugar said. Still, it goes without saying that the play has no easy resolution.

The company was also lucky as their advisor, department head Allen Kuharski, was in communication with the playwright, Ellen McLaughlin. “The play has been out of print for awhile, so she was surprised but excited to hear that we were staging it,” Roth said. McLaughlin will be attending Senior Company’s Friday opening and speaking in a discussion following the play.

“Days and Nights Within” will have four performances: Friday, Dec. 8, at 8 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 9, at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sunday, Dec. 10, at 8 p.m. in the Frear Ensemble Theater, Lang Performing Arts Center.

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