The sun went down on Friday, sending a local news team at the Lyceum Theatre at the Tempe campus into a panic as they searched for a way to cover a story about night.
“Tragedy: a tragedy,” a satirical play put on by the students of the Herberger School of Theatre and Film, runs until Oct. 18.
The play is about an affiliate broadcast news team — made up of an anchor, two reporters and a legal analyst — that covers a breaking news story about the how the sun set, but the world is left in the dark wondering if it will rise again.
Joya Scott, director of the play and a master of fine arts graduate student, said in her director’s notes, with news “we see talking heads … attempting to report the news, but also trying to sum up the ineffable experience of actually being there when history happens.”
Scott said she feels reporters and commentators only talk about a subject to fill space in the 24-hour endless news cycle, and the real news is there is only so much a person can say about the news, she said.
The play started like a typical nightly broadcast program, and each news member commented from separate locations about the setting sun.
Frank, the news anchor, sat at his desk in the station’s studio and coordinated the newscast between all the different team members during the “tragedy.”
Adam Pinti, an MFA performance student and the actor who played the character of Frank, said he hoped the audience would receive Frank as someone who is trying his hardest to anchor the story on their behalf.
“He is an anchor in the true sense of the word,” Pinti said. “He keeps everyone grounded, but his weak side is exposed because of the [event].”
As the play progresses, the story of the setting sun and the possibility of eternal darkness unnerves and unravels the mock news team.
Lee Hanson, an MFA performance student and actress, played a witness who was interviewed by one of the field reporters, watches him have a breakdown and eventually picks up his abandoned microphone to report about what she saw and felt during the tragedy.
The witness talks with Frank, the only member of the broadcast team that has not suffered a meltdown, and offers him hope and reassurance during the time of darkness.
“My role is to help the crew members realize it’s not as bad as it seems,” Hanson said. “I feel in all this madness I was one beacon for the audience to come back to.”
Alayne Levine, a theater sophomore, said she enjoys seeing the different works put on by the theater department, and she liked the character Frank.
Levine said she felt the play “was a funny view on our media today.”
Scott said the play mocks television news in order to make a bigger point.
“We all try to explain in words the unexplainable, real or imagined, and most of us fail miserably,” Scott said in her notes. “Even as it pokes fun … this play has … deep sympathy for those who step out on that limb to describe the indescribable in front of millions of viewers.”
Reach the reporter at lpalmisa@asu.edu.
