2008 Woodie Awards
Think Alice in Wonderland
By William Salmon
Issue date: 10/24/08 Section: Entertainment
On Homecoming Weekend, Jenny Unruh, as Rachel, led an ensemble in search of our sensibilities.
Set on a surreal stage, the audience was addressed by a psychological drama that led us into our own emotional interiors.
Rachel lives in a wonderland with all sorts of strange characters. She lives in an illusion about others and herself, and in the expectation that her fantasies will come true; isn't Christmas all about receiving puppies?
However, she keeps bumping into raw reality; her own impending murder, a fanciful dream of escaping adult expectations by running away, losing her wedding ring and then taken in by a stranger living in a strange world.
At each turn of events, our heroine experiences the death of those who care for her, or for whom she cares. She runs into the egos of others as well as her own. Isn't the human situation that while we are adults we experience Christmas as a child? The problem is we are no longer children!
As the play progresses, Rachel runs to a homeless shelter. Often we are home less as we fail to fulfill our intended humanity. It is only when our inner being and our outer experience is in synch do we find that we are living at home.
Through a loving relationship in the shelter, Rachael sees "a light at the end of the tunnel," and awakens to maturity and is transformed into a rational human being that has empathy for others as a warm and motherly psychologist.
A theological under-theme that floats through the play in the possibility of an in-breaking Christmas while Bing Crosby croons, "I'll be HOME for Christmas, if only in my DREAMS."
A secondary theme pokes fun at several kinds of Freudian pop-psychiatry.
This article was submitted by Dr. William Salmon, a KWU alumnus. He graduated from Kansas Wesleyan in the class of 1957, and is a retired United Methodist Pastor.
Set on a surreal stage, the audience was addressed by a psychological drama that led us into our own emotional interiors.
Rachel lives in a wonderland with all sorts of strange characters. She lives in an illusion about others and herself, and in the expectation that her fantasies will come true; isn't Christmas all about receiving puppies?
However, she keeps bumping into raw reality; her own impending murder, a fanciful dream of escaping adult expectations by running away, losing her wedding ring and then taken in by a stranger living in a strange world.
At each turn of events, our heroine experiences the death of those who care for her, or for whom she cares. She runs into the egos of others as well as her own. Isn't the human situation that while we are adults we experience Christmas as a child? The problem is we are no longer children!
As the play progresses, Rachel runs to a homeless shelter. Often we are home less as we fail to fulfill our intended humanity. It is only when our inner being and our outer experience is in synch do we find that we are living at home.
Through a loving relationship in the shelter, Rachael sees "a light at the end of the tunnel," and awakens to maturity and is transformed into a rational human being that has empathy for others as a warm and motherly psychologist.
A theological under-theme that floats through the play in the possibility of an in-breaking Christmas while Bing Crosby croons, "I'll be HOME for Christmas, if only in my DREAMS."
A secondary theme pokes fun at several kinds of Freudian pop-psychiatry.
This article was submitted by Dr. William Salmon, a KWU alumnus. He graduated from Kansas Wesleyan in the class of 1957, and is a retired United Methodist Pastor.
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