Just in time for Fall Fest, the Brandeis Players readied themselves to perform a new show on campus-Liz Duffy Adams' witty masterpiece of a play, Or. The performances took place in the Carl J. Shapiro Theater, debuting on Thursday, Oct. 11, and running through Sunday, Oct. 14. At each show, the theater filled up comfortably with students and their families, eager to see a play whose bottom line-to pursue what is important to you, even if that is unaccepted by society-greatly parallels the Brandeisian experience.

Adams' play is, on the surface, a fascinating comedy that explores the tension between personal commitment and political entanglement in the life of a charming and clever young plawright, named Aphra Behn. As much as one must pay attention to the involved plotline of the play, the mannerisms of the characters are where the true genius of this work lies. Though the play is set in the 17th century, critics have hailed it as a commentary on the social culture of the 1960s. Many details in conversation, implied social norms in the play and thematic scenarios presented in Or clearly correspond to elements of the 1960s that are familiar even to those of us who did not live through them.

The play opened with a monologue by Aphra (Anneke Reich '13,) that accounted for its oddly pithy title by pleading to the audience the dilemma of living in a sequence of "or," following the general trend of loyalty or love? Choice or conformity? Perhaps the greatest theme in the play is that life gives us each only a certain amount of time and will confront us with impossible choices, and the decisions that we make determine not only what is important to us, but what our lives become.

When the lights dim and re-illuminate for the first time after Aphra's monologue, we find her in a jail cell, perched all too comfortably at a writing desk, heckling the jailer for more ink for her elaborate quill pen. She is writing a letter to the King of England, reminding him to uphold his end of some bargain made between the two in the course of her other day job-as a government-employed spy.
Once Aphra is released from jail, the next scene opens in her writing parlor, where the rest of the play takes place. Over the span of one night, Aphra remains in her room with a trifold purpose: to finish writing her newest play by the morning, to tie up loose ends left from her last spy mission and to keep under control her lovers and friends who pop in throughout the night.

Judging from the audience's response of overwhelming laughter, a favorite scene was when Lady Davenant, a patroness of the arts, it seems, who has much levity in the London theater, bursts into Aphra's chamber barely announced. Perhaps the initial hilarity of the scene can be attributed to the fact that the actor (Christopher Knight '14) who played the Lady is actually a young man of considerable height, towering above the petite Reich in a ghastly colored gown with a voluminous hoopskirt, a blonde wig of tightly curled hair and even high heeled shoes-not that he needed them. Lady Davenant stormed into Aphra's parlor and blustered about, raving in a feigned British accent that required careful attention to decode. Aphra floated behind her, and the two made several hilarious turns about the room, knocking over furniture as the Lady poked at Aphra with an illustrious feathered fan while she spoke.

Each character steals the show in his or her own way, and although each had an all-consuming presence, this only fueled and improved the interactions between them all. The course of the play sees an array of dynamics: Williams, Aphra's ex-lover and current coworker as a spy, played by Andrew Prentice '13, bobs in and out of the writing room at the most inconvenient of times and is shut in a closet with a bottle of liquor by Aphra the rest of the time. A rising actress and friend of Aphra's, Nell, (Corrie Legge '14,) alternates between indulging in her attraction to Aphra, eavesdropping unsuccessfully on Aphra's other encounters when Aphra shuts her in the bedchamber and sleeping with King Charles, who happens to be Aphra's other lover. King Charles (Alex Karel '14,) is utterly clueless to the happenings within Aphra's parlor and is entirely taken with Nell. Maya Grant '13 plays Maria, Aphra's feisty housemaid who supplies endless sass and makes a hilarious impression on each of the other characters.

Altogether, the play was harmoniously executed. Each line poured gracefully into the next, and the actors' impeccable timing provoked many laughs from the audience. The students acting were so comfortable that they hardly seemed aware of the taboo nature of their parts, considering the time period in which the play is actually set. They explored themes of promiscuity, openness about bisexuality, the empowerment of women and used obscenities in normal conversation-all things which hearken more to the "free love" culture of the 1960s than to the tight-laced ethos of colonial-era England.

I hope that those who saw Brandeis' production of Or also picked up on the complex underlying themes in it, as this play is most enjoyable and relatable when one realizes that it is multidimensional. The thematic content of the play may compound into a different take-home message for every viewer, but perhaps that is the grandest thing to learn from Or: Everyone is different, and if we choose not to express what makes us each unique, life will certainly be one boring show.
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