Keely, Du, and the Freshmen

This weekend, I attended a performance of Keely and Du, the controversial play by the pseudonymous Jane Martin, at the Vanderbilt University Theater. While the script, a polemic about the abortion debate, often replaces needed nuance with shock, the cast does a heroic job. Angie Fontaine’s (Keely) performance is especially remarkable. The script permits her little physical movement (she is handcuffed for most of the show) yet her emotion, intonation, and range of expression make for a captivating performance.

Equally captivating as the events on stage were the happenings in the audience. This show was required viewing for every incoming Vanderbilt freshman. Most universities assign a common book for new students—a Siddharta or Don Quixote—whose themes of self-discovery and cultural integration are apt metaphors for college life. Some take a more controversial approach, such as Princeton’s production of “Sex on a Saturday Night,” to warn students abouts rampant sexual abuse. According to Vanderbilt Visions, the program that orients incoming students by discussing the “challenges all first year students encounter,”

Unlike many American colleges and universities, where a common reading brings together the first-year class, Vanderbilt first-year students together go to the theater.

Community is apparently built through a communal exploration of spousal abuse, rape, religious zealotry, and abortion. Three lessons from watching the audience during the show:

1. Someone who was worried about what to wear to the prom just a few short months ago is not sufficently mature to handle material of this nature, as indicated by nervous laughter in all the wrong places.


2. I feel for Vanderbilt’s professors of these undegraduates. Someone who sends text messages, makes phone calls, and holds up the lit screen of a cell phone during fade outs in some modern version of the lighter-during-Freebird in the midst of a stage performance is unlikely to show etiquette, restraint, or decorum in a classroom setting.


3. Making this play a required freshman communal experience was a very, very bad idea.