Falling: New Visions Directors’ Festival, Students react to Salome and Icarus’s Mother

This weekend, Muhlenberg’s director festival New Visions took place. The two shows featured were Salome and Icarus’s Mother. Salome was written by Oscar Wilde and directed by Simon Evans ‘17. Icarus’s Mother was written by Sam Shepard, and directed by Karina Fox ‘17.

Every one of the six performances was sold out. The shows’ reviews were mostly positive. This was the second New Visions festival of the semester. The title for this New Visions festival was “Falling.” I was not able to see the show, but most people who saw it had a lot of nice things to say about the shows.

One of the people I interviewed was Casey Montgomery ‘19, who is majoring in both Theater and English, and a French minor. She had some strong feelings about the show: “The directors created some beautiful pieces to present to us in a little under two hours. It’s honestly amazing what those groups of people could accomplish in three months. Icarus’s Mother presented an interesting story in which a group of friends start at a picnic and the whole play ends in some psychological trauma and Salome presents a strong all-female cast retelling Oscar Wilde’s classic play. While much like everyone else I had no idea what was happening in Icarus’s Mother, I was so totally invested in the characters.

I wanted to know their stories, their connections, and why on earth they did any of what they did. I left confused but thoroughly entertained after being sent on the whirlwind of emotions it presented. With Salome, while it was significantly easier to track why characters were doing what they were doing, it still left quite the impact on me. It was amazing to see all the women involved change Oscar Wilde’s play into a play dealing with ideas of feminism and female empowerment. I can see why these plays were presented together because even though the plots were quite drastically different, both strongly impacted the audience and had people at the edge of their seats.” I also interviewed Melissa Miller ‘18, who is a Psychology major but also has a great interest in theater and has taken many classes in the department. I talked to her about her feelings on the shows: “Both of these were great plays. I thought both were well designed, directed and acted. My favorite play was Icarus’s Mother. I thought that there were many interesting parts of the play. My favorite part was when Frank came running back onto the stage having seen the plane crash. It was especially interesting because it showed a complete transformation of his character. It showed how quickly something fun and positive can go to something tragic and traumatizing. Patrick Moore ‘17 was the standout actor. He did a phenomenal job showing the intense journey that happens in this play.” “Salome was also really interesting,” said Miller. “My favorite was Christine Phelan’s (‘17) character—Salome’s mother. She did a great job communicating her relationship with her daughter while also balancing the relationship [with] her wife. Overall though, I was very confused by this play. I was unsure of what was going on and what I was supposed to think. I enjoyed it, I’m just not sure what the takeaway is.” “Both plays were good, but they left me with more questions than I feel I should have,” concluded Miller. “Some of the plot points were very unclear and I got lost through portions of it. While I enjoyed them both, I would have liked to see if the plot could have been made more clear.” Though both Miller and Montgomery had strong feelings about the shows, they did have different feelings. These performances seem like shows that people talk about long after they are over, and have a profound impact on the people lucky enough to see them.