Bree Capel
bic001@marietta.edu
Zombies, a student discount, and humor were some of the attractions that drew me to last Friday’s 8 p.m. production of the Mid-Ohio Valley Players’ “Night of the Living Dead.” Adapted from George Romero and John Russo’s original film, this play delivered on zombies (they were limping out of the woodwork) and the student discount, but failed to provoke any laughter from me based in anything but disappointment and cynicism.
The play opens with siblings Barbara and Johnny wisecracking and reminiscing as they visit their father’s resting place. Barbara has a strong presence, showcasing determination and tenderness both in driving the long distance to adorn her father’s grave and in her relationship with her brother. The duo joke of better times with Barbara clearly wearing the pants –until a strange man, who is revealed to be a zombie, assails Barbara. This event marks Barbara’s rapid decline from hero to damsel in distress. Johnny is killed while rescuing his sister, who runs away and seeks shelter in a nearby house. From this point forward, all of the play’s potential melts away and the plot becomes one-dimensional with Barbara playing helpless woman hanging onto the leg of the play’s new protagonist Ben.
To be brief, Barbara finds shelter in a dilapidated house with the rest of the cast and they remain in there bickering until zombies burst in and kill all except Ben who is mistakenly killed by the police. However, there is more to be said about this play’s unsettling portrayal of women.
Experiencing the insidious sexism of this play prompted me to question the motives of its director. Annoyingly, I later learned that two women, Karen Pratt-Paskawych and Patricia Burkhammer, directed NOTLD and somehow failed to create an empowered, independent woman protagonist. I cringed as Barbara continuously sobbed and wondered what the little girl seated in front of me thought of her. Her hysteria was so potent that at one point she could not put on her own shoes. Throughout this ordeal I was waiting for Barbara to finally get a grip, snatch the rifle out of Ben’s hands and be her own hero.
Despite the cast’s even woman to man ratio, the characters live decidedly homosocial lives, with men rarely interacting with women in positive ways. Take, for example, distressed husband Harry’s continuous rage and club wielding toward his wife Helen, or boyfriend Tom’s quaint reassurance to his girlfriend Judy that he had better reasoning than her in the face of the zombie apocalypse. Violence aimed at women and disregard for the feminine perspective were lasting themes in the portrayal of romantic relationships in this play.
One-by-one, each character is killed in zombie-related tragedies. Needless to say, I breathed a sigh of relief when a mob of ravenous zombies burst through the front door and dragged away a shrieking Barbara.
As a feminist, I was appalled by “Night of the Living Dead,” and am glad to write that Saturday was its last performance this year.
