Wrestling with Horror

Photo credit: Zack Huggins

It’s no spoiler to say at the conclusion of Slide By, The Elevator Project’s latest show at the AT&T Performing Arts Center produced and directed by Jake Nice, in lieu of credits, the audience is confronted with a chronological list of US schools famous for mass shootings on a projector. Beginning with Columbine, the years tick along as do the names of the schools. As I write this on January 16th, 2020, two schools made the list as last-minute additions to an already over-burdened tally. 

Slide By’s promotional material notes that one in ten adults call mass shootings a significant source of anxiety. For two decades, images of schools suffering under this epidemic have been proliferated in the wider cultural oeuvre, forever tainting the sense of middle-class serenity. School violence is nothing new to American schools, but with Columbine, it reared its ugly head finally for suburbia. 

This play doesn’t focus on the aftermath; that would be too easy. Instead, we get an inside look at the mind of the troubled teen—the marginalized kid who suspects that the Columbine shooters might have been on to something. We meet Chad Squier (Jon Garrard), with his a-bit-too-on-the-nose name, who’s now ascended to the ranks of the high school cautionary tale: a washed up state wrestling champ who lost a scholarship and nearly flunked out of college. He returns to his old school in an unnamed American city as a substitute for a day, and not just any day—April 30, 1999, ten days after the action of Columbine.

One of the show’s main preoccupations is toxic masculinity, which it presents as a cyclical, male-centric problem. The author, Thomas Ward, should be commended for tackling this wide-spread but invisible issue. Beautifully cast and acted, this show grips the audience from beginning to end. Content warnings are well placed on the ticketing page, and viewers should be ready to traverse difficult waters. I was extremely glad to note the presence of an intimacy director in the program (Danielle Georgiou) given this show’s in-depth look at sexual abuse on the stage. 

Slide By doesn’t deal with the myriad non-white-male victims of male toxicity, only mentioning that we all, in fact, do suffer. It would be unfair to charge the author with failing to take up the story of every victim of toxic masculinity, but the story that unfolds on stage is narrowly focused. This show ignores, for instance, the effects of locker room talk on women. On the contrary, it stages in painful detail the particular horrors men inflict on other men. I don’t know that there were any conclusions drawn about how to solve this problem in Ward’s narrative, but I will say this: if sunlight is the best disinfectant, then this play does enough. 

Broadly, Ward’s narrative was successful. With the exception of a few bits of clunky dialogue, I totally bought into this work. The story hit home from the moment Matt (Jeremy LeBlanc) appeared on stage. His work as the newest link in the toxic cycle was solid alongside the other supporting characters. Cory Kosel showed off exceptional comedic timing as the Dave the janitor and Chad’s best friend from childhood, and Sydney Lo’s engaging Susan filled out the trio well. 

Chad Squier (Jon Garrard) didn’t fully capture me until the second half of the play. I’m inclined to believe this was an intentional trick of the narrative rather than attribute it to something mechanical like acting or direction. Post-show, I can say that Garrard gave a truly heartwrenching performance that left me empathizing, at times against my own will, with his character throughout the second half of the play.  

Cindee Mayfield as the crusty, school administrative assistant, Miss Weems, made me laugh out loud with her audacity and spitfire courage even in the darkest moments of the action. Brian Witkowicz as Coach Perkins is to be commended for tackling an extraordinarily uncomfortable role with such nuance and dexterity. 

By her second set of lines, it was clear to me that Detra Payne’s portrayal of Mrs. Davis was something special. By the time she concluded her stunningly difficult monologue at the end of the play, I was ready to buy a ticket every show she appears in from here on out.

What should’ve hit home for me as the list of schools rolled at the end, and probably did for the rest of the audience, was the presence of suburban DFW’s own last-minute addition: South Oak Cliff High School. Instead, my eyes flicked to the top of the 2020 list—Bellaire High School in Houston, TX.

Only a few days ago on Snapchat, my friend reached out via a group text. “There’s been a shooting at one of our feeder schools,” she said to us, and sent us a link to the news about Bellaire. My mind was busy, my thoughts full of work. I stopped only long enough to remember that she probably felt unsafe. I sent bland words of comfort and support, and frankly, I went on with my day from there. I didn’t once stop to check the news or let it sink in that yet another school shooting had occurred until the “credits” rolled at the end of the show. 

Slide By is a time capsule hearkening back to a moment when we were all horrified. My advice to readers? Carve out a time between now and January 26th to see this outstanding performance so we can collectively recover our horror.

Photo credit: Zack Huggins