On March 1-3, the DU Drama Ensemble (DUDE) put on the independently funded play “Fifth Planet” at the Johnston-MacFarlane Black Box Theatre.
The award-winning playwright David Auburn (“Proof”) wrote the play. It tells the story of Mike (sophomore Keegan Bockhorst)—a janitor—and Veronica (sophomore Nicki Seefried)—an astronomer. Both unknowingly work at the same observatory. The two cross paths on the same hill where Veronica is on her way to work and Mike has set up a telescope to do amateur stargazing. Each scene—signaled by the lights going down—is a different night in 1995.
As the play progresses, the friendship between the brilliant scientist and the janitor develops—awkward at its start, but eventually growing warmer. Because these two characters are the only ones in the play, the audience is able to see the nuances in both the friendship between Mike and Veronica and in the characters themselves as their friendship changes them.
While the play is first and foremost a character study, it is also unabashedly nerdy about the scientific aspects of the script. Veronica joyously lectures about Jupiter—the fifth planet—on numerous occasions and Mike throws himself wholeheartedly into trying to become an amateur astronomer.
But the show is also a comedy. Mike’s wry observations about his wife, among other things, and Veronica’s awkwardness cause laughs throughout the show.
“It’s about how people interact and it’s funny and it’s sad and it leaves you wondering at the end and those things all really appeal to me,” director and sophomore Garrett Biggs said. “It was really how realistic I thought the characters were and even though the science is out of date, the ideas are very permanent.”
As the only two actors, Bockhorst and Seefried carried the whole production on their shoulders and did a brilliant job at it. Seefried’s Veronica makes the transition from an awkward, disconnected scientist who sleeps all day and works all night to a confident woman who obviously cares about Mike. As Mike puts it, she has colleagues, not friends, and lives under the thumb of her superior Dr. Ayres. However, this all changes as the play continues. Seefried plays this subtly enough that it isn’t too blatant, but well enough that the audience can pick up on it.
Bockhorst’s Mike takes most of the more obvious comedic brunt. But, while Mike’s observations are funny, they don’t detract from his everyman philosophizing. Both actors are also in charge of doing their own prop changes, adding to their duties.
“Keegan [Bockhorst] and Nicki [Seefried] signed on last quarter. I knew them very well and had worked with them before,” Biggs said. “It was 99-percent them.”
DUDE was lucky enough to receive extra funding this year, meaning that the students were able to independently organize and produce the show themselves.
DU Theatre finishes out winter quarter with a production of “Stage Door.” The play, set in the 1930s, has already opened with showings on Feb. 26 and 27, but there are still remaining performances at 7:30 p.m. on March 6 and 7, as well as a matinee performance at 2 p.m. on March 8. All performances are at the Byron Theatre at the Newman Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased online, through the Newman Center.
