Word: sarnat
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...depressants, either from UHS or in their own artistic pursuits. First there was Elizabeth Wurtzel '88 and her best-seller Prozac Nation. Then, last spring, Jen Cox '95 made a film based on a similar theme which has since been screening at art houses in the area. Now, Zoe Sarnat '97 has written and directed a cool nightmare entitled "WASTED!," which deals with a group of medicated patients at a recovery center. What is refreshing about Sarnat's take is how she stays away from self-serving philosophizing and lofty judgments and instead demonstrates how the wrong kinds of drugs...
...Sarnat sure knows her psychotropic drugs. As the characters are introduced and their dosages cataloged, their mental instability becomes evident. The lead character, Cory (Melissa Gibson '99), is an accident waiting to happen. Because she takes copious amounts of pills, she is hardly aware of what she says or does. She makes the mistake of teasing a pick-up, Mike (Jason Dean '96), and then not consenting to sex. As she undresses and trades clothes with him, she trades identities and gender roles as well. Cory serenades Mike with such sweet compliments that his eventual brutality comes as a shame...
...comforting. Ghoulish faces stencilled in silver all over the walls haunt her. Not even the smooth, bad-ass lingo of her friend 9eyes (David Jacobs) can help to calm her down from either a bad trip or serious withdrawl. One such tense moment between 9eyes and Cory is where Sarnat's writing, Gibson's spastic acting and Khamsi's decor work best to explore the depths of madness. Still, the scene is symptomatic of how unhelpful the male characters...
...WASTED!" does not pretend to examine an insane asylum, but rather an ordinary halfway house. Sarnat is more attuned to moments of deadpan humor than sticking to feelings of absolute despair and frustration. Like a talk-show, "WASTED!" has an episodic quality; the scenes are quick and short, with numerous fade-outs in between. Some of the actors, including Potier and Jacobs, have enough savvy to know that as much as their characters are supposed to be real people, their personas are meant to subvert the stereotypical notions of estranged youth...
...While Sarnat has the opportunity to present mental sickness in a much more disturbing way, her humor makes the existential grief of these characters more palatable--like the sugar coating on a pill. The characters can't help being regressive, what with all the medication they take. The humor, like the attractive musical score, is a reminder of happier emotions; but the play's ultimate message is that, in the words of one patient, "Dead is free...