Gravy play on South morbidly optimistic

By Rhiannon Saegert/managing editor

Lauren Kirkpatrick, Nolan Chapa and Michael Muller perform in the new South Campus play Craving Gravy or Love in the Time of Cannibalism.  Photo by Haylie Jones/The Collegian
Lauren Kirkpatrick, Nolan Chapa and Michael Muller perform in the new South Campus play Craving Gravy or Love in the Time of Cannibalism. Photo by Haylie Jones/The Collegian

Craving Gravy or Love in the Time of Cannibalism will open South Campus’ drama season in the Joe B. Rushing Center for the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 3-5.

Gravy is based on the absurdist play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett and is sometimes called the optimist’s Godot.

The play follows wanderers Gilroy, played by Lauren Kirkpatrick, and Delroy, played by Michael Muller, through a suburban housing development turned post-apocalyptic wasteland.

They bury their recently deceased friend Leroy, and soon after The Charmer, played by Nolan Chapa, appears. The Charmer never speaks but gives Gilroy and Delroy the items he charms out of a bush. Then, things begin to make even less sense.

“It’s just one of those experiences you don’t forget,” South drama instructor Melinda Benton-Muller said. “Very unique. It ends up being very personal to every person. They interpret it their own way.”

Benton-Muller said the play is existential in nature, with both main characters searching for meaning in the nonsensical setting.

“Vagueness is definitely a good word,” Chapa said.

Muller played The Servant, the analogue to Gravy’s The Charmer, in a production of Godot this past summer. He said while Godot is a very bleak comedy, Gravy has a more optimistic conclusion.

“If nothing else, it’s going to be different,” Kirkpatrick said, “You won’t see this every day.”

Admission is free for all TCC students, faculty and staff, $3 for other students and senior citizens and $6 for the general public. Tickets go on sale at 7 p.m. the day of a performance, and no late seating is allowed.