The Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Theater and Music Theater at Princeton University presents At the Wedding by Bryna Turner, a raucous and bittersweet comedy in which Carlo finds herself at her ex-girlfriend’s wedding to a guy and guides the audience through cynically hilarious exchanges with other party guests.
The play features senior Pixley Marquardt and is co-directed by Marquardt and junior Ren Dzyuba. Performances are Nov. 13, 14, 19, 20 and 21 at 8 p.m. in the Wallace Theater at the Lewis Arts complex on the Princeton campus.
It might be the best night of her ex-girlfriend Eva’s life, but it’s the worst night of Carlo’s. Unable to accept Eva’s new chapter, Carlo shows up to her wedding in a last-ditch effort to save Eva from her supposed tragic fate. Through a series of exchanges with the complicated cast of the reception, Carlo is faced with a choice: to push beyond her heartache and recognize the true character of the wedding and its guests, or to sink under the weight of old habits and remain resolute in her bitter perceptions of love.
Marquardt proposed the play as her senior independent work toward a minor in the Program in Theater and Music Theater. As a multidisciplinary theater artist, she writes, directs and performs. She explains that her academic and artistic goals begin with the prefix “trans”—signaling across, beyond or on the other side. With this project, she sought to explore how gender is inscribed in the theater, and, considering gender as a performative act, how onstage performance can provide an avenue to examine how we structure our gendered lives.
“Using acting and directing as a form of embodied research, I wanted to specifically focus on butch lesbianism, in search of a more precise understanding of the intersection between gender and sexuality,” Marquardt notes. “This kind of masculinity is underexplored in the theater, and I hope to bring to light a personally resonant experience that is rarely portrayed onstage.”
Marquardt read several plays examining lesbian identity and gender performance before settling on Turner’s comedy. The play debuted off-Broadway on March 21, 2022, produced by Lincoln Center Theater’s LCT3 at the Claire Tow Theater, and was directed by Jenna Worsham. It received critical praise as a New York Times Critic’s Pick.
Dzyuba joined the project as co-director with a similar interest in theatrical representation of gender. Resonating with the play’s themes of identity and estrangement, their role in the project has centered on representing how self-imposed isolation is common, yet not essential to the queer experience. Through staging this production, they wish to examine how one’s gender presentation can feel alienating but does not have to be a barrier to connection, especially amongst those not exactly aligned with such identities.
In addition to Marquardt, the student cast of At the Wedding includes Maddie Delbridge, Miel Escamilla, Shannon Groth, Jesse O’Rourke, Katie Park and Bryce Steach.
Student members of the production team, in addition to Dzyuba, include B Ireland as scenic designer, Jaylin Golar as lighting designer, Callisto Lim as sound designer, and stage management by Lily Raphael, Lily Hutcheson and Peyton McLaughlin. Professional members of the production team are E. Keating Helfrich Debelak as costume designer, Jacqueline Holloway as intimacy director and faculty member Aaron Landsman as co-producer. Faculty member Yuval Boim is project mentor with senior Didi Vekri as design mentor.
Audiences are advised the play includes depictions of substance abuse and discussions of depression.
Free and open to the public, tickets can be reserved through tickets.princeton.edu.
To learn more about the Lewis Center for the Arts, visit arts.princeton.edu.
