Word: huml
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Rechul pulled out all the stops in his final match and earned a 3-2 win over senior James Huml in double overtime. That would be all the points Harvard would get as Oklahoma State...
Some of the play's other thematic concerns--like Huml's grappling with human values--get pushed aside by this interpretative choice. The meaninglessness of the book on social theory which Huml dictates to Blanka is a vicious joke. Huml, in numerous monologues, carries on with a long string of empty statements: "Various people have at various times and in various circumstances various needs...and thus attach to various things various values." But because this production uses Huml's professional musings as nothing more than a gag, they quickly become tiresome...
Still, Baum performs the role well, alternating between Huml's callous indifference to others and his severe inner emotional struggle. The women have less character depth to convey--they exist as representations of the various sides of Huml's personality. Conroy, Soohen, and Dunogue are able to fill individual niches in the play, though, and they gather enough of the audience's sympathy to make Huml's character seem more despicable...
...play's wackiest moments involve the scientists and their temperamental machine, which they carry around carefully suspended on two poles. Puzuk is supposed to ask Huml a series of questions, but it can't perform its task. Dr. Anna Balcar (Erica Rabbit '00) and Karel Kriebel (Tinker Green) try putting Puzuk, who appears to be a hunk of gears and metal, into the freezer and into the oven in order to adjust its temperature. Nothing seems to work, and technology is represented as a useless primadonna...
...scientists provide plenty of comic relief. In addition to Anna and Kriebel, the group includes Emil Machal (Nathan Edwards '97) a surveyor who counts the stripes on Huml's wall and uses a number of strange contraptions to perform his duty. The project manager is Mr. Beck (Ian Simmons '98), who does little else but nervously march across the stage and exclaim "tomorrow I'm going fishing and that's that!" These non-sequiturs provide a nervous, inexplicable humor, but they seem to suggest more serious issues which elude this production...