Play makes viewers think

Playwright and Bloomsburg University student Justin Lee takes the word controversial, manipulates it into art and throws it into the audiences' faces in his play "Murder and Beauty in Middleton."

Lee created a play that forces its audience to think outside of their typical box.

Nine cast members beautifully brought to life the existence and imaginations of 13 complicated characters.

The play begins when James Mitciv (Adrian Anchondo) goes to school and takes control by killing nine people, wounding three and then taking his own life.

The play proceeds to introduce the character of Desmond Mann (Leonard Neil) who views Mitcivs actions as martyrdom.

Desmond, the audience learns, is a homosexual from a broken home. His sister, Renee (Meg Hackney), is bulimic, and his needy mother, Marla Mann (Allison Murphy), is separated from her husband who left the family.

So begins the creation of many controversial highlights of the play.

Once Mitciv kills his classmates and himself, the play carefully creates a spoof of the American media. The media hunts Mitciv's mother, Paula (Molly Casey), only to take her words and manipulate them on public television.

The play also portrays the media as pandering to America's lowest standards by stressing a news story about a janitor from Middleton who rescued a hamster during the shooting.

The play goes on to introduce the fact that Renee is bulimic because she is desperately trying to be beautiful like the pictures of models she hangs on her walls.

Her friend Hannah, who Mitciv killed, is recreated in Renee's mind and helps her on her self-destroying journey to find beauty in herself.

Hannah tells Renee to ignore her psychologist, Dr. Lawrence (Matt Garifo), and concentrate on becoming beautiful, because the sculpted, toned form is beauty and beauty is power.

Much of an underlying theme seemed to be power and control. Mitciv murdered for control; Renee purges for power.

Dr. Lawrence holds his Ph.D. as supreme power to justify his emotions, as he is infatuated with Renee.

The false belief that a title or a college education makes a man superior is created in the play, because Dr. Lawrence believes he has the power to take what he wants and he ends up raping Renee.

The play also deals with people's feeling of powerlessness.

Paula Mitciv is powerless against her emotions toward her dead son and against the media that haunt her every action. In this lack of power, Paula commits suicide by swallowing a bottle of pills.

"The play stands (hopefully) as a testimonial to many voices drowned out in shamelessly grotesque media coverage and misdirected rage," Lee said. "The social issues covered by the play are partially about that failure by all parties to stop living in a false bubble of security and wake up to the world around them; we all need to start owning up to this place surrounding us."

The play pushes all four sides of the envelope in order to present the audience with individual fears and food for thought.

The overcoming of life's obstacles and realizing that, despite everything there is good left in this world play an important role throughout the performance.

Desmond was ready to kill all the guilty, because Mitciv convinced him that everyone is guilty of something and will never change, until he finds his sister dying.

Renee took pills and slit her wrists because she believed everything was beautiful, except herself.

At this time, Desmond realized there is happiness and that people can change so he saves his sister.

The second, equally as important, theme of the play was that life is beautiful.

Lee stated that, when everyone does wake up, we can look at the world around us and smile, not because we've been financially successful or we've rid the world of terrorists, but because the world is just that, a beautiful place filled with wonderful things that anyone can appreciate.

The play ends with Desmond realizing that happiness is this theory and the stepping stone is hope.

Desmond describes the theory as this hope and belief that after every single night there will be a sunrise. No matter what happens, whether there is a nuclear bomb that blows up, or hate that could burn humanity to the ground, there will still be a sunrise.

The play brought out serious perspectives, something to strike a chord in everyone, and then resolved that, despite any horror, there is always beauty.

James Mitciv believed that humanity was guilty and deserved death because neither change nor beauty existed, but as one character stated in the play: "The world is a crazy place sometimes. What we thought didn't exist was just hard to find."