Muddled 'Things' falls apart

Things to Do While Waiting for Your Abortion attempts to portray the many viewpoints and moral complexities involved with abortion, but its overly grand aim and lack of commitment to any particular stance prevents the play from making a discernible point. The play focuses on Jane (Lisa Barrett, BR '02), who works over the summer at her father's abortion clinic, following her experience with the aid of intermittent monologues, delivered as drafts of her senior essay. At the play's onset, Jane is intentionally shallow and insensitive to her situation, but by the end, according to her, "Through working in a clinic that deals with death, I've learned a respect for life." The events that unfold involve Margaret (Tatiana Jitkoff, CC '03), a nervous and remorseful middle-aged woman, Crystal (Jessica Kadis, ES '02), a brash, sexy, popular (and lesbian) classmate, and Nancy (Annis Whitlow, MC '01), a chic but self-absorbed 20-something wearing what Crystal describes as "fuck me boots." Jane interacts with these women, among others, as they struggle with having an abortion, but the interactions do not convincingly suggest why Jane's metamorphosis takes place.

Things to Do While Waiting for Your Abortion: By Saul Nadata, Directed by Fei Liu CHIP LOCKWOOD/YH

Things to Do, an original script by Saul Nadata, TD '01, appropriately comes at a time when Planned Parenthood is making plans to open an abortion clinic a quarter-mile northeast of Science Hill. The play's clinic, plagued by protesters led by a Right To Lifer (Andrew Singer, BK '02), foretells of things to come for the Yale-New Haven community. But while Things to Do takes special care not to make any definitive judgment, the opposing viewpoints on abortion come out misbalanced. The seriousness and plausibility of the Right to Lifer's monologue is undermined by overly dramatic lighting, delivery of lines such as "babies equal garbage," and misappropriation of the connotations of Nazism. Much to the same extent, Jane's shallow and undefined character, continually using phrases such as "like, you know," inhibits us from grasping her motivation.

The actors do not escape the script's muddled dialogue and purpose, often repeating certain lines in a slow and contemplative manner to show their importance. The play's most satisfying moments come when a bum named Jimmy (also played by Singer) explains to the audience the feeling of being unwanted and unneeded, suggesting the plight of unwanted children, but also reaffirming the value of all human life.

Overall, the play suffers greatly from its dangerous ambivalence, as if one neither could nor should come to a judgment about abortion. Jane ends the play by saying, "Never stop to measure, never judge, just move on," as if one can only hope to understand the intricacies of abortion and accept that it is a reality. For a play continually using the senior essay structure, this seems a dangerously weak thesis.

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