If you’ve ever felt frustrated in your quest to attract the attention of a girl, Liam knows how you feel.
An intellectual, he finds himself in a bad spot, going crazy over a girl who really dislikes him. The conclusion he arrives at, “people are dumb as shit,” is one playwright Step Taylor said explains the mess his characters get into in his latest production, People are Dumb.
“Mostly, I tend to write about complicated love,” Taylor said. “I want people to realize they’re defined by much more than the person they’re dating or shagging.”
People are Dumb is the last in a series of three shows written in honour of St. Thomas University’s centenary.
A dark comedy, the show will take the audience to New York, Germany and even Fredericton as six characters learn lessons about love and everything that comes with the territory. 100 days of lies, blackmail, cheating and alcoholism creates messy situations―and it’s up to Taylor’s cast of “confused but passionate” characters to clean them up.
Jeffrey Carlton, director of communications for STU said involving Theatre St. Thomas in the centenary celebrations made sense because of the school’s strong history of theatre.
“That’s something we discovered as we were preparing,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that we celebrated different aspects of the St. Thomas community and Theatre St. Thomas has been a pretty strong culture force.”
With help from Ilkay Silk, director of drama for Theatre St. Thomas, the university commissioned three one-act plays by STU alumni. John Barlow’s Twitch and Ryan Griffith’s Zinc went up in March. However, unlike the first two productions, Taylor’s show has expanded into a full length piece.
Barlow, Griffith and Taylor were heavily involved in writing shows for Theatre St. Thomas during their time at STU, making them familiar names on campus. Both shows in March sold out, attracting not only STU students, but also a number of high school students interested in experiencing theatre at the university level.
People are Dumb will kick off with a two-day run at the Black Box Theatre on Sept. 10.
STU students won’t be the only ones heading back to the books, though―after realizing he’d have a “prettier long term relationship” with writing (“I don’t plan on aging well, which is sort of a strike against me as an actor,” he said.) Taylor accepted his offer into the playwriting programme at the National Theatre School of Canada. Only two are admitted to this programme every year.
But while that decision came easy to the STU alum, the question “are people really dumb” left him torn.
“Yes and no. I mean, we’re not dumb in that we invented everything from refrigerators to Xbox 360’s, but many of us are still emotionally daft,” he said.
“But if one miserable person sees this show and it dawns on them, ‘Oh God – I need to let go of whatever it is I keep saying I can’t let go of because there’s just so much else to do,’ I’ll feel a little bit better about my place on this planet.”
