University Star

Drumsticks bang in the aisles, actors hang from the rafters, dancers crawl out of the crowd and the dead come through in the theatre and dance departments latest performance, Terminal, a play written by Susan Yankowitz.

The play incorporates constant movement and sound, using a style known as physical theater, designed to heighten intensity and audience reaction.

“I don’t want to direct a normal play,” said Aisha Melhem, director and theater graduate student. “I like very experimental things where a lot of physical movement is involved to express ideas.”

The mood is set in the opening scenes with the six performers throwing themselves about the stage. They are dying and gasping emphatically, raising their voices in a chant beckoning to the dead. A tribal rhythm drones in the background.

The tension rises as the actors click their own drumsticks together in unison. The beat escalates until it becomes a discordant clatter, their voices growing louder as the cowbell comes in clanking.

“I thought it was interesting how they were on with the drums, and then they weren’t on with the drums,” said Cindy Proctor, pre-theater sophomore. “It gave it kind of a demented form.”

Performers give the stage a new meaning, frequently leaving the central spotlight to wander into the rows of spectators. They surround the small theater with choreographed cacophony still banging and shouting.

Terminal, shown during Halloween weekend in the PHS Foundation Studio Theatre, is Melhem’s final thesis project at Texas State and her first major directing role. Melhem said Joseph Chaikin’s Open Theatre, where the play was originally developed, inspired her.

“It was created out of improvisational exercises in the open theatre,” Melhem said. “I used exercises they used to build my ensemble as well. It came together at the end.”

Black walls, floors and curtains against white costumes help establish the theme: mortality.

“We’re all patients in a terminal ward — the part of the hospital where you go when you know you’re going to die,” said Johnny Ray Colombo, theater junior and actor in the play. “One of us has a cough, one has a limp and one of us can’t really breathe. I was holding my heart the whole time: my character has a heart disease.”

The script delves into the paranormal.

“The whole chant we were doing was calling upon the spirits of the dead to come through us, and that’s where the story takes place,” Colombo said. “Each one of us gets possessed by a different spirit. One of us gets possessed by an executed man … I get possessed by an old voodoo black woman.”

Students found the plot hard to follow.

“I think the writing of the play was a bit confusing,” said Marisa Riley, pre-theater freshman. “I must say, I did not follow it at times. Sometimes it was extremely clear, and sometimes it was kind of ambiguous.”

However, theater students were unanimous after Thursday’s show that the energy and performances were “top notch.”

“I loved experiencing the newness of it, because I haven’t seen anything like that before,” Proctor said. “It was creepy and I loved it.”