by Nathan Jacquez
Daily Lobo
By the time you read this, the "Words Afire" play festival will already be barreling along.
The annual play festival is host to many up and coming local playwrights and directors at various venues across Albuquerque.
Running through Nov. 9, UNM's own Theatre X will be showing three exciting plays - "The Garage," by Heidi Griffin, "Little Fish," by Josh Norman and a short one-act by Sean Gardner called "A Happy Death." The Daily Lobo recently caught up with Gardner to talk about his first production.
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DL: Tell me about your play
SG: I wrote it for Susan Eriksson's beginning playwriting class. It's a 10-minuute play but actually runs about 15 minutes. It's basically a satire on violence and violence in America - particularly violence in friendship. It revolves around two main characters. I don't want to give a lot away but a lot of chaos happens.
DL: Would you say the play is more about chaos or satirical violence?
SG: Satirical violence, basically how people try solve all their problems with guns.
DL: How many characters are in your play?
SG: There are actually 10. There are Jim and Mike, who are the main characters, and then there are about eight ensemble characters. We're billing it as ensemble because we don't want to give away what happens, but it sort of involves the audience's participation. It's actually a little bit absurd. They're lost in Golden Gate Park but they don't know they're in the park, they just think they're lost. They've been out in the woods for about four hours, they only have a couple of bottles of water left and haven't had food in a while and one of the guys breaks his toe and starts panicking. Saying he can't go on, he asks the other guy to kill him with a hatchet and from there, it just gets more chaotic.
DL: How did you come up with the title?
SG: I just needed a title so I did it. Actually there's a Camus, Albert Camus, he has a book called A Happy Death. But it's about Euthanasia and the translation of Euthanasia means a happy death, but there's sort of a question there. The play centers around one of the guys who asks his friend to practice the act of Euthanasia on him.
DL: Who are you working with right now?
SG: The director's name is Will Klundt and he's a fourth-year student here majoring in theater. He's not in the directing class - most of the students who are directing plays are in the directing class doing this for credit. It's been a really great experience working with him. He's really got my vision down.
