September 21, 2018
Wasted, a play at Baltimore’s
Center Stage through tomorrow, strikes a current chord of controversy and
thrusts sharp questions into our complacency about consent in relationships. It
raises new uncertainties in an increasing muddied arena.
When I bought tickets to this play, I had a feeling that it
would be unlike any other stage performance I had seen. First of all, the
audience arrived and walked onto the stage where we ordered and paid for drinks
from a bar that was part of the set, and meandered talking with other audience
members in a disco atmosphere of music and moving spotlights.
At 7:30, the audience was still on the stage when the play
began with two characters making an entrance into the “bar” and beginning their
dialogue. When the “bar” closed, everyone was told to leave and go home, at
which point the audience went down a few steps and watched the rest of the
performance from the seats.
Will Hearle plays Oli and Serena Jennings plays Emma in the
play written and directed by Kat Woods. They also skillfully play other
characters in the narrative such as friends, Oli’s mother and officials
involved with rape investigation. Stage setting is minimalist, as well as
costumes. The strength in the production is the script, directing and acting. It is definitely worth seeing.
This play is especially relevant considering the #metoo
movement and accusations of sexual misconduct (perhaps attempted rape) at a
teenage party several decades ago made by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford against
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Jurist Kavanaugh’s boyhood friend Mark
Judge writes about their social teen life of drunken parties. Kavanaugh and
Judge deny Ford’s allegations.
But back to Wasted,
where two young people get wasted with booze that leads them to dark places
with consequences that can affect them for years. The next morning, Emma can’t
remember what happened but has a bad feeling. Her friend suggests that Oli had
sex with her without her consent while she was passed out. Then things go down the rabbit hole.
Like the purported Kavanaugh teen party, both of these
stories begin with alcohol—way too much. Things happen, some of which players
do not remember. Emma blames herself and Oli is shocked when it is suggested
that he had raped someone. Kavanaugh alleges that it never happened and that he
doesn’t remember the party. Ford says she remembers being held down, hands
pulling at her clothes and a hand over her mouth, and these memories have
remained with her across decades, even while trying to forget.
Playwright Woods does not judge but, rather, presents the
story from different perspectives. The audience holds empathy for both
characters because truth is sometimes murky. She leaves it up to the audience
to come up with their own answers.
The big question is how to define consent and this was
addressed after the play in a Q&A between the audience, cast members, playwright
and Katie Wicklund a legal advocate from the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual
Assault.
When I was growing up, there was no sex education in schools,
but this has gradually changed. Wicklund says sex education is evolving
into consent education, eventually to be taught age-appropriately to
kindergarten through college.
We’ve come a long way and now understand that we need to
define consent and communicate this
to young people. There have been too many lives wasted because no one knows the
definition.
